The Legend of Ruka Hood
by Daisy If You Have
Summary: AU retelling of the classic story of Robin Hood. Daring swordfights, hidden love, and lots of cranky gay characters.
1. An Inauspicious Beginning

It's an old story. One everyone thinks they know. But stories tie themselves in knots and loops as the years go ever on, ever changing and impossible to untangle. The teller changes each time, each retelling uncovering a new truth and inventing a new lie. And so this story is not like all those that came before it, nor will it be like any that come after. Stories are always this way. But we endeavor to tell the truest version of the story we know.

And that story begins on the edge of a town on the edge of a county in a cold, grey, stone building that declared itself "Mother Mary's Home for Orphan Souls," but wore the harsh manner of a prison more comfortably than that of a home. Huddled together under a thin grey blanket, near a barred window, sat two young girls, one tall and spindly, and the other small and delicate of feature. What had brought them together, one could not say- fate draws who it will together, unconcerned for the logic of men. But together the grimy blondes had suffered this fortress of children, and together they sat on this cold and rainy night, struggling to keep warm.

"Someday I'm going to sleep in one of those huge down beds. With thick, dark wood posts, and plush velvet curtains, and there'll be a roaring fire, and the blankets are going to be so warm and soft-"

"Well, right now we're sleeping on a damp floor, Duchess." The tiny one adjusted her ill-fitting dress. "But it's not all hopeless! Look!" She drew two small cookies out of seemingly nowhere. "From our benevolent Lord's private reserve. No wonder we only get gruel, in the flavor, 'not enough'."

"Mina, how did you..?"

"I'm small, Ruka, nobody sees me."

Whatever had compelled Haruka, on a night not unlike this one, to take the small, scared, lonely little girl Mina had been under her wing, it had been worth it. Maybe it was just what the kitchen maid had said, before killing the dormouse she had taken as a pet- She was desperate for something to love. Whatever the reason had been, in the three years they had stuck it out here, Mina had proven herself to be one of the lightest fingers Ruka had ever seen. She could steal a ring off of your own finger, and you'd never know. And so, they ate a little better than the other girls at Mother Mary's.

Ruka took the cookie appreciatively. "Someday, we'll eat like this all the time." She nodded, with all a child's assurance. "And we'll have meat, and there'll be so much that sometimes we'll be forced to leave it at the table."

Mina nibbled on her cookie and laughed. "While you're building castles in the air, I'd like a horse. A white one. With ribbons in his hair." She was cynical for all of what she figured were her seven years, but then again, life had given her few reasons not to be.

"You'll have it. I'll buy one for you."

She shook her head. "Okay, Ruka."

The older girl peered out the window, hearing the clunking of hooves and a call for the horses to stop. The sisters flung the door open wide- more tiny children peering out. The plague that had covered the land was starting to wane, finally, but it had left so many like her, without family or home. They were, as the headmaster liked to remind them, a burden to their king and country, and, indeed, God himself. Well, they couldn't be too much of a burden, stuffed together and barely fed as they were, but in any case, only about half of them survived anyway. Even Mina had almost been lost last year to a fever, and Haruka had to trade the little stash of trinkets they had laid away in preparation for their grand escape, for some broth and a warmer blanket. She didn't regret it, to be sure. As Mina had observed, she;d obtained most of the treasures anyhow. And Ruka cherished the one friend she had. But still, it had set them back on their master plan quite a bit.

She considered all of this, and the question of who in this group might live and who might die, when one girl in particular caught her eye. She was beautiful, and moved with a grace so unlike the others here. She was not crying, nor had her head hung low, but her chin was firm, eyes forward and proud as she prepared to walk into the stone edifice.

Mina poked her head around Ruka's shoulder and looked out the window. "What are you looking at?" She looked out the window and shrugged. "Eh. Just fresh meat for this place to chew up."

But Ruka's gaze did not waver, staring at the girl who refused to look at the muddy ground as the headmaster barked the long litany of rules at the new inmates.

Mina smacked her on the arm. "What are you so fixated on? This happens once a week. It's how I keep track of the months."

"No, not this. This doesn't happen every time." She could not explain the feeling, no exactly. It was unlike anything she'd ever felt. She understood some now of what Rei emant when she spoke of feeling the grace of God- Quick as Mina'd been to say that if God were to grace them with anything, it should be bread, Ruka had envied the peace it seemed to give Rei. She felt that peace now, the overwhelming feeling that she was exactly where she was meant to be. Everything was right, but suddenly everything was different.

"Ruka, we can't afford for you to get sick."

"I'm not sick. I'm just-" She stared, mouth open.

"Looney. Excellent." She pulled her away from the window. "Go to sleep. We'll see them all in the morning."

They curled up together as they had so many nights before, but Haruka's lack of sleep was due to neither the cold of the stone nor the wet of the rain, but the girl with the faraway eyes.

"En garde!" Haruka swung wide her stick, Mina ducking under the too-high stroke and jabbing toward Ruka's stomach, nearly getting her. She jumped back and brought her stick down hard on Mina's, stopping the thrust.

Mina backed up quickly and whirled around Ruka's back. "Have at you, blaggard!" But Haruka was too quick, and blocked her on the left.

She pursued Mina behind a tree. "I shall feast upon your innards tonight, devil!"

Mina jumped up on a stump, almost eye level with Haruka. "I promise it shall be a far richer fare than you're used to, Ruka Hood!"

And then Haruka saw, out of the corner of her eye, the girl sitting there on a rock, eyes closed in the sunshine. She was peaceful, unbothered by the girls playing their loud games around her. Ruka wanted to reach out and touch her, but she was so beautiful, even in the rough grey woolen dress and long plain plaint all of them wore. She seemed to transcend it somehow, the small smile crossing her lips, so like the Mary she had half-heartedly venerated in the chapel, but now wanting to give all of her worship to this radiant-

Mina struck her across the face with the rough stick, and her cheek began to bleed.

"Ow! MINA! " she held her hand there a moment, and pulled it away, running the smear of blood on her dress.

Mina buried the point of the stick in her chest."You think when you fight Prince John, he's going to pause so you can make eyes at some girl?"

Ruka heard a faint giggle, and looked over at the girl to discover, to her great joy, that she was favoring Ruka with a smile.

"She's laughing! "

"Of course she's laughing, I hit you in the face with a stick, that's something everyone can enjoy "

Haruka ignored Mina and walked toward the girl who sat so gracefully among the rabble that surrounded her. She was aware of every sensation: The beat of her heart, the way the rough woolen dress pulled at every inch of her skin, the fall of the braid down the middle of her back, even the very air that entered her lungs seemed to flow like silk. Caught up in the grand scope of her feeling, Ruka suddenly realized she was standing in front of the girl, who was staring right at her. No, not at her. Through her, indexing her, burying her eyes into her like she were looking at a painting she might never see again. It was intoxicating and off-putting, all at once.

She rubbed her hands together, took a deep breath, and scratched behind her ear. The words had to be perfect. "Good morrow."

Mina sighed from the stump where she sat cross-legged, watching. "Aye, poetry, Ruka. I can't watch this." She hopped off the stump and quietly slid toward the gate.

The graceful girl smiled beatifically. "Good morrow, brave swordsman." Her voice was like the sound of church bells, each word its own note, together in musical perfection.

Ruka blushed, and suddenly any command she had of the English language was destroyed in the moment it took the girl to toy with the end of her braid. She touched the cut on Ruka's cheek.

"Oh, but I see you were wounded in the pursuit of good." Her eyes just kept moving along Ruka's person, as she stood and stammered. "Does this brave warrior have a name?"

She stood tall, looking the girl in the eye. "Ruka-uh- I am Haruka Hood."

"Brave knight Haruka Hood, called Ruka. I am Maid Michiru, of Fitzwalter."

"Michiru." The name could not have been more beautiful if it had been sung by a nightingale. It was all at once unexpected and perfection, and Ruka found it within herself to smile back, emboldened by the idea that the subject of all her veneration had a name she could invoke in her own personal heart's prayer. Thinking as quickly as she could, she picked a violet from the ground next to the rock where she sat. "For you, Maid Michiru. As your knight."

She tucked it into her braid. "My knight." And the sun dappled through the trees as she smiled, painting them both with spots of sunlight in the dark.

It is a wonder, how quickly children bond, in a way adults can only hope to know. Michiru and Haruka quickly became inseparable, always playing at knight and lady, Ruka bringing her violets for her hair, admiring the tiny purple adornments in the sunlight, knowing they marked Michiru as her lady, her thing worth fighting for.

Mina, for her part, wondered of what use Michiru could possibly be to them. It was not that Mina was particularly opposed to more girls joining them- indeed, she and Ruka had discussed it before, but it had always been a question of someone's usefulness, rather than the way the summer sun touched someone's hair.

But in time, she came to accept it as just another one of Ruka's many strange fixations, and in any case, Michiru was not half useless. She knew how to tell the glass from the gem when Mina picked pockets, and for that Mina was grateful enough to let her stay. Mina still slipped through the bars of the gate, as she had for years, and still brought back treasures and sometimes, the greatest treasure of all, food. They had to go a little farther, now, and Ruka rarely snuck out with her anymore, preferring to stay by Michiru's side. It didn't matter much to Mina. Ruka was a bit of a bull in a china shop anyhow, and without her the picking was easier, but it was more the principle of the thing.

No, what truly worried Mina was Haruka's lack of discernment when it came to the question of Michiru. Not that she hadn't shown her willingness to be a fool before- she had taken more than a handful of beatings that should have gone to Mina. But Michiru had awakened a new level of self-sacrifice in her, and it was one that Mina generally disapproved of. She gave Michiru part of her dinner when the pickings got scarce, she put her blanket over her when it got cold, and just last week she had found herself caned for speaking out of turn to the headmaster, who had dared to to shove by Michiru at the dinner line and caused her to spill a bit of her treasured ration of stew. It was all well and good to be in love, Mina thought, but it was at least slightly important to remain alive while doing so. Ruka was getting somewhat over-familiar with the business end of the cane.

Ruka didn't seem to care. She said girls liked scars, and smiled at Michiru while saying so.

Well, girls liked a martyr even better.

As Mina carefully considered the problem in front of her, Michiru and Ruka sat in their quiet copse of trees where they spent so much time, sheltered from the rest of the world and wrapped up in the joy of each other. Ruka tenderly braided her violets into Michiru's hair, enjoying every moment her young fingers were caught up in the brilliant silk of Michiru's mane. She was struck at how the violets seemed to adorn Michiru like tiny jewels, looking more beautiful than any princess Ruka could imagine, clothed in the lace of the dappled sunlight like a bride before her.

Michiru gazed over her shoulder and back to Ruka, the soft smile she had come to worship gracing Michiru's lips. "I had thought, you know, that my coming here was the day of my greatest tragedy."

Ruka tied the braid at the end and shrugged. "I think most of us think that."

Michiru turned completely to face Ruka, her face so few inches from hers. "For my part, I was wrong. I have had a thousand tragedies, and yet I cannot truly call my arrival here one of them anymore."

For a moment, Haruka forgot how to breathe. Michiru had never been so close to her, not really. Some nights, when it had been particularly cold, she had snuggled into Ruka. But it had been cold. And Mina did the same thing. Nothing was meant by it. Nothing would ever be meant by it, because Michiru was above her, to think that Michiru ever thought of her as a lover would be foolishness. The knight pours their affection into their queen, knowing that all they can ever hope for is the chance to serve her, the chance to worship her. To ever hope that she could return the affection was almost a betrayal of duty.

In another time, she might have remembered the story of Lancelot and Guinevere.

But, as it was, all she could do was stutter. "O-oh?"

Michiru smiled again, but it was different now, and a slight rosy blush came to her cheeks. "I could never bring myself to declare meeting you a tragedy."

They kissed, then, with all the sweet and innocent love of the very young, and for the first time she could remember, Ruka heard the birds sing inside the iron gates.

"She loves me!" Ruka scooped Mina off her feet and spun her around.

"Of course she does. Am I the only one who pays attention around here? You two have been dancing around trying to catch each others' fancy like a pair of field grouse." She squirmed out of Ruka's grip. "Leaving me, might I add, to handle the burden of our work myself."

Ruka frowned, realizing, in that moment, that she may been a little neglectful of her friend. She touched Mina's shoulder. "Ah Mina, I'm sorry, I-"

"Don't be sorry, be useful." She smuggled something into Haruka's hand. "Hide this."

She glanced into her hand, and then looked back up. "Honey candy! How did you get this?"

Mina looked up at her and slyly smiled. "I found a way into the palace. The kitchen, at least, I've yet to mine the true riches there." She nodded fiercely. "We need to save it. We can buy favors with it, maybe even from the sisters."

Ruka looked at it sadly. "We can't have any?"

Mina unpacked something from her pocket. "I've something better." She unwrapped a small piece of stewed meat and gave it Ruka.

Her eyes grew wide as she chewed a corner of it. "God in heaven, Mina, this is delicious." She felt Michiru's hand on her shoulder, and turned around excitedly. "Michiru, we have meat!" She extended it toward her small mouth. "Here, have some! I've more than enough for me."

Michiru sadly shook her head, her eyes downcast. "You must keep it for yourself." She sighed and took Ruka's hand. "My love, I need to speak with you."

Mina bowed slightly. "I know when I'm not needed." She took the honey candy from Ruka's grasp. "I'll take care of this." She skipped off into the cold stone building, stealing one glance back at the pair before disappearing.

Michiru did not look back at Haruka, but led her by the hand into the small grove where they had passed so many sweet hours together, like Orpheus leading Eurydice out of Hell. Even when they reached the quiet safety of their little nest, Michiru held her hand, but looked away into the distance, into a future that she had already seen and Ruka could not imagine.

They stood there for a few moments before Michiru's voice broke the quiet. "I am going away."

Ruka started, and shook her head fiercely. "Where? There's no where to go." She considered for a moment, her face growing panicked. "I'll come along with you, Mina and I have some valuables saved away, Mina can come with us, can't she? I'll follow you. Let me follow you."

Michiru looked back at her, her eyes filled with tears. "Once there was a girl. And she lived in a great hall, and had the finest teachers, wore the finest clothing. She was the only child of her loving parents, and all was well for her in this world." She dropped Ruka's hand and wandered off a few steps. "And then the plague came. The plague cared not for rich or poor, good or evil, it took saint and sinner the same. It took the girl's parents from her, stolen away in the night like so many servants had been, so many other nobles. The girl sickened. She sickened but she did not die, no matter how desperately she wished it. So many had died. There was such a panic and a clamor. She was mistaken for a servant's child, you see, and no amount of her protests convinced anyone otherwise." She laughed coldly. "There were so convinced of their own ideas that it did not occur to them that a child might know who she is, above all else. And they sent her away, like they did all children who were inconvenient and orphaned, those too foolish to die with their families. The girl determined she would simply bear her cross and never again know happiness, and perhaps God would grant her the release of death." Tears streamed down her face. "But she met a girl,no, a noble knight, who was good and kind to her. Who saved her in every way it was possible to be saved. The girl found happiness again, even in such a dark place. She found love. Before that, love had been a word she only knew from books and stories." Her voice darkened. "But she was not allowed to keep even that. Just as she had come to love the knight and know the knight's love for her, she was discovered. Suddenly the disposable child was a precious doll to be protected, and the king announced his intention to raise her himself as his ward." She looked up at Haruka. "I am to go with Prince John."

Haruka's breath quickened, as if there was not enough air in all the world to aid her, these words drowning her, her body crying out for any relief. The words came broken to her lips. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"I told you on the day we met. I am Maid Michiru, of Fitzwalter."

Tears filled her eyes. "I thought we were playing a game! I'm orphan Ruka, of nothing." Her shoulders slumped and she sat on the ground.

"No," She drew her arms around her shoulders. "You are Haruka Hood, of my heart." Michiru sat on the ground and drew Ruka's head into her lap.

"They're going to take you away."

Michiru looked off into the distance, but did not say anything for a moment, just stroked her hair quietly in the calm of the grove. She sighed, and looked down at Ruka. "They're coming for me tonight."

She sat bolt upright."That's too soon!"

"The Prince would say I have been too long in such a place. It reflects poorly on him to lose track of a niece." She gently embraced her love. "I do not wish it either, Ruka. But it is the truth of the matter."

Ruka simply sobbed in her arms.

Mina held Ruka's hand as the coach pulled up. It was bigger than either of them had ever seen, ornately decorated with delicate wood carvings covered in elegant gold leaf, polished to a shine. A footman jumped off the back and laid a red velvet carpet over the dust in the road, spilling out toward the girls lined up in front of the cold stone edifice they called home, that roll of cloth worth more than any of their lives.

"His Majesty, Prince John!" The footman bellowed.

The door, decorated with the crest of family and crown, swung open, revealing a man in plush purple robes, more gilded than even his carriage. Ruka hated him immediately. He smiled politely at the girls, and Mina pulled her to her knees alongside her and the rest of the other orphans.

She hissed into her ear. "Ruka. Do not do anything stupid. They will KILL YOU."

The doors to the home swung open, and Michiru appeared in the doorway, the same faraway and stone-faced expression she had on her face the night she arrived. They had given her a bath, probably warmer than anything any of the other children had ever felt, and was outfitted in an elegant green gown, with her own jewels at her neck, sparkling brilliantly. Her hair was intricately braided with pearls and gold, but Haruka noticed a small violet tucked in the curls. Her violets.

"Maid Michiru, Lady of Fitzwalter, niece to the King." Prince John walked toward her, each honorific sliding off his tounge. "My utmost apologies that you have languished in this common home. Of course," He nodded to the headmaster, "I know you have been in the loving care of these earthly angels. But a rose requires more than a wild violet, so they say."

Michiru's eyes were downcast, and she politely curtsied. "If this be the kindness of an earthbound heaven, I may only imagine what the real one shall be. I suppose it is true, what they say though, Sire."

Prince John snapped his fingers, and a tall, dark-haired woman stepped out of the carriage. "Setsuna, your handmaiden, will see to your care and education in the future.

Setsuna curtsied to both Prince John and Michiru.

Ruka sat, knees to the ground, choking back tears. They couldn't take her away. It would be as if someone had taken the sun and demanded she spend the rest of her life in eternal night. Mina's hand was on her leg, and she wasn't sure if it was meant to comfort her or hold her back. In any case, it mattered little when she heard the carriage door slam shut and prepare to take her Michiru, her lady for which she would fight and dare, away from her. She couldn't allow it.

"Michiru!" Mina tried to stop her, but she plowed through the row of stern adults and ran as fast as her heart would take her toward the carriage.

Michiru, in a moment of desperation, hung the entire top half of her body out of the carriage window, and held onto Ruka's hand.

"I'll never forget you, Michiru! I'll come for you! You'll see!" She cried out with a force beyond her eleven years. The coach began to pull away, and Ruka struggled to keep running alongside, holding onto Michiru's hand like a lifeline. Michiru took the violet from her hair and pressed it into Ruka's palm, their eyes still locked.

Prince John looked over at her and shook his head. "Driver!" The driver looked down at the skinny girl clinging to the future Lady, and raised his whip. Mina winced as the crack went through the air, and Haruka fell into the dust of the road, the back of her dress split open and a red line dripping down her spine.

She did not care when the headmaster grabbed her by the shoulders, screaming about penance. She did not care when they threw her into a cold, dark, lonely closet, nothing to eat, nothing to drink, only a prayerbook and a candle. She did not care about the burning in her back, the scar it would leave, or the fever it would bring.

She just kept holding that flower.


	2. Ten Years Pass

The girl's rose gold hair curled in the cold night air, her head hung as the coach slowed to a stop. She sniffled and looked up at the nobleman who glared, half interested.

"Thank you for stopping, kind sir." The thin shawl fell off of her shoulder, and she slowly put it back onto her body, the nobleman noticing, in the moonlight, that her skin was the color of fresh cream, her breasts young and proud. "I'm afraid I've been abandoned by my husband, sir. I find myself without much, but I am a hard worker, and an excellent laundress. I can cook some, and sew a little..." She looked up at him shyly, her eyes sparkling softly as the wind whistled down the road.

The nobleman opened his carriage door and beckoned her inside. "Miss, I believe we can work something to both our benefits, don't you?"

She sat down across from him on the plush velvet seating, looking around at the finery inside the carriage, sweets and drink and fine blankets. Even a fur. She must have looked so dingy and dirty there against the brilliant colors of finery.

He put a hand on her knee, and she flinched. "All alone in the world, you say?" He voice had the texture of an undercooked eel pie as his hand drew further up her leg.

She nodded, but there were tears in her eyes. "Sir, I am a virtuous girl-"

He laughed. "Whoever heard of a virtuous towngirl? Be not proud, underling." He began to remove her shawl, and then heard a thunk on the roof of his carriage, and his servants shouting. He moved toward the coach window, only to find the young maid holding a knife to his neck.

"Oops." She giggled. "Seems you were right."

He sat down, backed up by the point of her dagger. She slowly started to cut the gold buttons off of his jacket, and put them in her front pocket. "You see," she took another button. "You men, you're so used to taking what you want. But now, we are the ones-"

"Ho, Mina." The nobleman looked up to see his carriage door swing open and shut, and a tall, lanky girl with short hair, dressed in men's breeches and an archer's hat, sat down next to the small blonde girl. She held a bow in her hand, and the quiver across her back was full, only a few small holes where she had fired off some of her arsenal.

His eyes grew wide with the painful realization of a man who has made a terrible error in judgment. "Ruka Hood."

"And Little Mina! Why do they always remember you, but they never remember me? I need to speak to the bards at the tavern, this is ridiculous." Mina indicated wildly with her dagger, the nobleman staying flattened against the back of the carriage as she finished cutting off his buttons. "Get up."

He stood up, and she shoved him out of the carriage door, the other girls pouncing upon him and tying his arms behind his back. There was no point in murder, Mina often said, most of the fun was in the lead up anyhow, when men begged for their lives and pissed themselves, and so the general law of the Merry Maids was to leave them alive if at all possible. Mina was more inclined to leave those alive that remembered her name.

Ruka flipped up the seat. "Ooooh, port." She took the cork out of the bottle and swallowed a glug, and then handed it to Mina. "I wonder if there's any candied fruit." She looked in the cab of the carriage. "Ah yes!" She stuffed the honey covered plum in her mouth, but did not bother to stop talking. "Mina, oo reawy-"

"Oh, swallow the candy, Ruka. You and your damnable sweet tooth." She took a pull out of the bottle. "Grab the gold, we shouldn't tarry here if we can help it." She swung the heavy fur over her shoulder.

Ruka nodded, filling her pockets with the pilfered sweets so that were such a rare delight, even for nobles. The gold coins she shoveled into the small bag at her hip, smiling all the while. It had been 6 years since they had run from Mother Mary's, when the threat had come that they would send Ruka away to one of the laundries. How they had managed to escape with the small group of girls, made it to Nottingham, and survived in the forest that first winter was one of the greater mysteries of our universe. If you asked Rei, it was the hand of God, if you asked Mina, it was the hand of the log that broke the leg of one of the Prince's deer. If you asked Ruka, it didn't matter at all. All that mattered was that they had lived. She was responsible for these girls, had offered to protect them, and she had not lost a single one.

The poor nobleman looked dumbfounded, tied up by the side of the road, as the girls made off with his gold and his wine.

"So what does it say? I strike quite a portrait, if I do say so myself." She held up the inky reward poster next to her face. "I don't think they really captured my inner light, or the way the moon illuminates my milky skin, but I suppose they did a fair enough job. C'mon Rei, what does it say?"

"That's Sister Rei, Mina."

"Sister, aunt, second cousin twice removed, I don't really have a care."

Rei had been swept from the Mother Mary's at the age of ten, known there for her deep sense of spirituality and quickness to learn. It was not that Rei felt the need to join the convent to be closer to God- in her observation, to know God was only to doubt him further, to realize that the relationship between man and God was not that of a parent to child, but that of two turbulent lovers in constant conflict. But she enjoyed the study, and the fact that there was food and a warm bed assured.

With the Crusades, she had found most of the men of her church called away to the Holy Land, and however ill-advised she found the Crusades on a personal and intellectual level, she was not going to squander the opportunity she now had. Sister Rei had been put in charge of the small church at Nottingham, and with the men away she found herself more able to direct the tithe money the nobles gave to assuage their guilt before God to its truest purpose-serving the poor. The vow of poverty she had taken, she felt, did not include meat every night for supper.

But she had never lost her link to the girls from Mother Mary's, and had often served as a go between when the Merry Maids had needed to offload some purloined jewelry or perfume, and Sister Rei took a cut of the transaction for the poor box. She was rather proud of how she managed the church, and her one penitent, and hoped to someday surpass the Mother Superior, who she felt was too in Prince John's pocket. Rei served God, she did not serve men.

In addition to her many other services, Sister Rei had also learned to read.

Mina shoved the poster into her hands. "Read it to us! You may be waiting for the second coming, but some us aren't."

Rei grumpily accepted the poster, and sighed. "Well, the large letters say wanted, as I'm sure you know."

Mina called over to where Ruka sat, leaning forward on the back of the wood pew in front of her, chin in her hand, studying the light as it moved through the stained glass and painted the church in watercolor. "You hear that, Ruka? Someone wants us!"

Ruka chuckled. "Well, that certainly is a first."

Rei continued, walking across the back of her churchly domain, mostly ignoring Mina's commentary. "In the letters directly underneath, it says 'Ruka Hood', and then in the smaller ones under that it says, 'and Little Mi-"

Mina grabbed at the braid on her back. "Why am I always second billed?! Are they any less likely to hang me?" She drew the braid across her neck and pulled, gagging dramatically. "And you-what good are you anyway without me? Who died and made you leader?"

Ruka did not seem to hear her, staring dreamily into the air, quietly humming to herself. The purples of the glass reminded her of that girl from so long ago, and the purple violets she had braided into her hair. She was undoubtedly married to some royal by now, a beautiful Lady with an appointed household and servants to manage. Ruka had simply been lucky to escape the home with her life, and for that she'd been grateful, but being in the church always reminded her of being in the holy presence of Maid Michiru, of the moment an angel dared to love her back before being whisked away heavenward. She might have continued in this vein of thought for hours if the delicately painted wooden carving of Saint Leofwynn hadn't struck her on the back of the head and clattered to the floor.

She rubbed the quickly-developing knot on the back of her head and turned to see Rei trying to wrest another Ruka-bound saint from Mina's hands. "What was that for?"

Mina tugged on the wooden saint in Rei's hands. "You're ruining my life, you blonde boyish idiot!"

Rei kicked Mina in the shin and replaced the rescued saint into his small altar at the back of the church. "I don't believe Ruka makes the posters, Mina."

The squeal of the heavy door stopped the three, all turning toward the hall where the unknown would enter. Ruka saw him first, and dove under the pew, immediately cursing Rei's name. She had strong feelings about the sanctity of the church, and several of those feelings involved the surrender of her bow and arrow at the door, along with Mina's sword.

"Glory be to God!" The Sheriff's voice echoed through the church, his boots clattering against the stone floor.

Rei's voice was strong and clear. "Sheriff, I must ask that you remove your sword in the house of the Lord. This is a place of sanctuary."

The Sheriff laughed and clapped her on the shoulder. "Little Sister, you are so good and pure, you cannot imagine the underhanded deeds that the low scum of this world might try. Even in a church, I must protect myself." He smiled and grabbed the pommel of his sword. Rei loathed him and his over familiarity, his sense that he owned the world and could do whatever he liked. All men were that way, by her reckoning. The Fathers she was forced to serve under, Prince John who ruled this kingdom into the ground, the Sheriff who took pleasure in the hardest and most cruel of his duties. No man was ever deserving of the power foisted upon him just because some damn fool girl listened to a snake all those years ago. Men, in their superiority, seem to have failed to realize they had become the snake.

Rei simply arched her brow. "Do you not believe in the protection of our Lord, for those that are deserving?"

Ruka slowly crawled on her belly under the pews, her eye carefully locked on the bow and quiver leaned up against the stone hallway, her archer's hat laid on top of them. If the Sheriff saw her, he would cut her down with a nary a thought and display her head on a pike in the market square. And you can be sure he would leave out the detail of how she had been unarmed on a church floor when her life ended. It would become some great and powerful battle, and nothing anyone else had to say would change how the story would be written in the books, no matter how loud Mina-. Mina. Where was she? Ruka squinted over to where she had been standing with Rei when the Sheriff had entered. She was barely squeezed behind the altar. The Sheriff was almost on top of her, and if he saw her...well, Ruka began to wiggle across the floor just a little faster.

"Sweet Sister, I _am_ the protection of the Lord." He stroked his beard thoughtfully as he looked at the small altar that had previously held Saint Loefwynn, before her miraculous flight across the sanctuary. "You seem to be missing something."

"Sheriff, may I ask if you are here to seek my counsel or for another matter? I do have duties, Holy Mother Church being as bereft of people as she is."

He turned away from the altar and looked at Rei. "Well, your taxes, of course."

She walked over toward the small room where she kept the church's coffer. "Of course. Why endanger simply the alimentary good of the poor when we can deprive them of spiritual sustenance as well?"

"Now Sister, you know it takes money to keep a kingdom." He held his finger out as one might scold a child, and Rei seethed with rage.

She spoke through gritted teeth. "Money, I note, that affords some wonderful parties at court."

"Prince John does so much to-"

She shoved a bag of coins into his hand. "Your thirty pieces of silver."

He frowned heavily. "The tariff due on this building is-"

She walked away, toward the stained glass at the front of the church. "Count it, good Sheriff, and perhaps listen a bit more closely whenever it is you receive your spiritual instruction."

He counted it and nodded, still frowning. "You know, the Mother Superior is a close friend of Prince John's, Sister Rei."

She did not look away from the candles she was lighting at the front. "For all have sinned, and fall short of the glory of God."

"I do not appreciate your tone, woman! I am the law and you will respect me!" He laid a hand on his sword and walked toward her.

She turned around, but did not move, as immoveable and immense as the stone statue of Jesus behind her, watching all. "The laws of men are nothing to me."

He drew his sword. "I believe Prince John would like that gold circlet over there on the Virgin." he indicated to the statue to the side of the altar with his sword. "She'll understand. For the kingdom."

"I have paid the tax. I will gladly render unto Caesar what is Caesar's. But I must insist that what is God's remain God's" Even as he pointed his sword at her, she did not move, or even flinch. There were always many compliments paid about the great and detailed statuary of her church, how they were so lifelike and heavenly, all at the once, but many people forgot to include the cold and fearless statue that was Sister Rei.

His sword drew ever closer, and then there was a yell from the back of the sanctuary, and an arrow whistled by his head so quickly it seemed as if an avenging angel had come out the skies. He whirled around to see Little Mina, her sword nearly half her size and an angry and indelicate expression on her face, stomping up the aisle.

Ruka Hood stood at the back, her bow drawn and a smirk on her face. "I only missed on account of Sister Rei's distaste for blood other than Christ's."

Little Mina stuck the end of her sword in his back, and before she even asked, his sword clattered to the floor, echoing through the stone church in the most beautiful hymn of triumph Mina had ever heard.

"On your knees, pigshit." Mina buried the point deeper into his back, and the Sheriff found himself with a desire to comply to a woman's wishes that had never before seemed so alluring. Mina raised her sword to strike a killing blow, but both Rei and Ruka cried out.

"This is a house of God!"

"He's unarmed and on his knees!"

"This is sacrilege!"

"This is dishonorable!"

Mina put the point of her sword on the floor and leaned against the tall steel. "Now, listen, you two. This isn't a matter of honor or godliness, this is a matter of survival. You two can talk all you care to about your precious ideals, but I tell you what, this fool here would happily murder you both on Jesus' own lap while you slept."

Ruka put her arrow back in the quiver and walked toward where the Sheriff kneeled, the sweat of stress on his brow. "The point is that we're not him." She adjusted her hat and looked down at him. "If I so much as hear that you've tried anything against the Sister again, I'll let Mina have her way, you understand?"

The Sheriff nodded, meek as a mouse, kneeling in the circle of these Three Fates deciding whether he would live or die, discussing the issue as if he weren't even present.

Ruka began to walk away, but took his sword with her. "Little Mina, come, we've food to deliver the people."

Mina scowled, but then sighed. "No one ever lets me have any fun." She went to follow, but then turned around, her sword at his throat. "Put me first on the posters, do you hear me?"

"There's nothing of interest for me in Nottingham. I don't wish to join the court, it's all lies and deceit and ermine furs." Michiru pouted delicately on the end of her bed as Setsuna folded dresses into a chest.

"My Lady, did you think they would let you stay here and tend the gardens with me forever?" Setsuna gave her a playful smile. "And you so long without finding a suitor, it was bound to happen."

"There was someone, once." She played with the edge of her sleeve. Her very own knight. It almost seemed a dream, now, the girl that she had fallen in love with all those years, before she even really knew to call it love. The way she gently laid her head in her lap, how tenderly she braided violets into Michiru's hair, her bravery and her soul of goodness. Her equal could not, and never would be, found among those pampered lapdogs at court, those who had never known a moment of struggle, who had nothing against which to test their mettle. It was only in darkness that those with true light could be found, and the court was a loud, harsh place where nothing of noble character might survive. That was why they all called themselves nobles, she imagined. They could buy everything else, why not buy a pretension to good moral character? But not one of them had even a sliver of the gentility and goodness contained in Ruka Hood's soft grey eyes.

"We shall make a good go of it at court, you'll see." Setsuna. Setsuna had meant so much to her, in the long, bitter nights here at Tollwood Hall. She had not only been teacher and nursemaid, but she was the only person Michiru felt she could truly call friend. Setsuna asked nothing of her other than to be herself, and took pleasure in teaching her all the small things of the world, over and above the talents she was meant to accumulate as a lady. She was always comforting and kind, Setsuna, and it was because of her that Michiru had not withered away for lack of love all these years.

"I am at least grateful they let you come with me. If I had to be without you, I would surely die." She took her books of poetry and quietly concealed them in the dresses Setsuna packed. "I feel as if my entire life has been decided for me, Setsuna. Well, that is the way of it, I suppose"

Setsuna touched her leg reassuringly. She loved her little maid, but her general attitude of fatalism could be trying, no matter how much it had been earned. "Well, we never do know what life will bring us in Nottingham, my dear."

Michiru threw her arms around Setsuna, grateful at least for the one thing that was truly hers.

They peeked through the brush and saw a gilded coach, so much like the one Ruka sometimes saw in her dreams, coming down the road, a complement of guards on horseback surrounding it, adorned with carved creatures and laden with chests, what they were filled with Ruka could only guess, but they were all worth more than her bounty, she figured. A moment of realization hit her as Mina excitedly threw her arms around her neck.

"Oh Lord in heaven, today is the day." Mina practically jumped with excitement as she released Ruka. "Would you look at that, I never imagined we'd get so lucky."

"We can't rob them, that's the royal coach, are you completely mad?" Ruka grabbed Mina by the shoulder. "That's more than robbery, there, that's treason, Mina."

"What are they going to do?" Mina scoffed. "Hang us twice? Ruka, this the chance. Our greatest take, our greatest stage, we may never get a chance like this again. They will write about us in the history books!" She adjusted her skirts and hit her sword underneath.

"We can't even read."

"Oh, you have no sense of drama at all." She started to tie a scarf around her head. "Let's do the fortuneteller. That's one of my favorites."

Ruka shook her head. "It'll never go off. Price John and his men have to know about us, they're the ones that's put a kings ransom on our heads."

Mina shook her head. "Ah, ah, my friend. A prince's ransom. Once King Richard comes back, everything will be different. You were the one who taught me that, among the many lies you've told."

She hissed at Mina. "It's not a lie! Everything will get better again, you'll see."

"Well." She finished applying her costume. "For the moment, what we have is what's in front of us." She grabbed both of Ruka's hands. "Now come! My brave friend, on this day, we show the Prince what happens to those that cross Nottingham, and Sherwood Forest, and leave us orphans, and tax on the poor, and undermine-"

"Mina, the coach is going to pass by if you don't stop with your speeches."

Mina popped out of the bushes and stood by the side of the road, a silk scarf in her hand, waving down the coach with a smooth and graceful movement, her eyes turned soft and dreamlike.

A voice came from inside the carriage. "Oh, it's been so long since I've seen a soothsayer! What fun, stop the coach."

Another voice followed. "Sire, this is near Sherwood Forest, and there could be bandits."

A laugh. "That little thing? A bandit? Oh come now, whoever heard of a female bandit?"

"Sire, the Merry Maids of Sherwood Forest-"

"Are a myth! Told by townspeople to frighten us off, I'm sure, one or two packs of young boys stealing a thing or two, and they want to fill our heads with these fairytales. Stop now, driver."

Mina looked up at the coach, her lids fluttering, her voice otherworldly as she twisted an arm into the air. "Prince John, the ruler of the realm, sovereign of all you see and do not see, the other world opens to you and bows to your crown! I your humble servant, here as messenger to the spirits and the stars, lay myself at your feet," She fell to her knees on the ground and threw her head back. "And ask only that I may carry a message to your majesty's noble ears! Oh hear my plea! The outer world is calling, calling, calling…"

Haruka rolled her eyes as she knelt in the bushes. "For the love of God…"

Prince John stood at the open door of the coach. "Girl, you may indeed, be graced with that task, as you wish. Rise."

Mina bowed her head and rose slowly. These were the moments she lived for, the con. The gold was nice, and not starving was a decent benefit, but what really kept her going was the look in their eyes when they realized they had been taken by Mina's pageantry. It was her gift- all the girls had something useful, something real. Hotaru the barber's daughter had a rudimentary understanding of medicine, Mako Scarlett could hunt and cook in a way that kept them all alive even in the coldest winter, Ami A Dale had a gift for remembering routes and layouts, Ruka was the archer, and Mina, she was the con. She could admit that mostly she and Ruka came up with the plans together, but it was always her who carried them off- Ruka was a terrible liar. And she seemed to born to live in lies.

"So gracious are you, Prince John. I trust this will be a message you will not soon forget." She swanned dramatically into the coach and sat herself on a plush velvet pillow. The king's advisor looked at her with narrowed eyes, as if he were trying to remember where he might have seen her before.

She hummed to herself and threw her head back, arms flung out to the sides. "I call upon the spirits! HEAR ME!" She let out a loud, shrieking cry, which caused Prince John to jump back and Ruka took as opportunity to get under the carriage and stick a knife into the bottom, slowly working her way into the box under the carriage seat.

"I see...I see..." Mina slumped dramatically to one side of the carriage, and then the other. "Oh! The throne held for years by a noble king!"

Prince John smiled proudly, chest puffed out, as, below him, Ruka began quietly storing gold coins into her bag, the guards around not even hearing her, Mina was screaming so loud. Let it never be said that Mina's god-given capacity to outwail even the most terrifying banshee had never come useful.

"OH PRINCE!" She threw herself across his lap, and he jumped back, not even realizing that two of his three rings were now missing. "I see your divine mercy, oh mercy, oh mercy." She threw her arms around his horrified neck, and then a necklace was gone, along with all the gold and an entire box of honeyed walnuts that Ruka felt fell into the category of important items to purloin.

"Oh my, yes, yes, I am filled with mercy." He tried delicately to push her off his lap, but her eyes flung open wide and she pressed her forehead to his.

She brought her voice low and calm, suddenly. "There will be a great struggle for your kingdom, sire. It is coming. It is coming soon."

Prince John scowled angrily and shoved her off. "What do you mean by that, girl!? Such insolence!"

She cackled and flung wide the door, and Prince John looked out to see his guards fallen, shaking their heads. She pushed down his advisor into the mud and stood on his back, throwing a royal robe over her shoulders. "I'd wager you didn't see this!"

Prince John stomped his feet and cried out as Ruka fled into the woods, arms laden with various treasures. "Seize them! KILL THEM!"

Mina grinned devlishly and pulled Prince John over the end of the carriage, tugging down his robe over his face and exposing his bare butt to all the guards and footmen. She laughed merrily as she jumped into a tree, turning back just one moment to yell over the bustling mom trying to right Prince John.

"Long live King Richard!" She ducked back into the treetop just as several arrows followed her jumping from one limb to another. These trees had given her so much. Ruka occasionally called her a squirrel, she spent enough time in them. But the knit spiderwebs of the treetops kept them from harm and fed them on more than one occasion, and now she used them to quickly lose the incompetent guard that Prince John called his own.

She seemed to have lost them, after a little while, but so had she seemed to have lost Ruka. There was always a worry, in the very corners of her mind, that she would be captured. They were already wanted for general robbery in the shire, and Ruka had not been wrong- this would be treason, and for treason you hang without nary a word.

"Ah well, a short life and a merry one." She said to no one in particular. She whistled the clear, high notes that marked the Merry Maids' signal to one another, and listened for the response. It had been so long, it seemed, since they all had fled to the woods, assured that at least if they died, they would die as creatures in control of their own fates. Now they owned these woods. A kingdom of their own creation, where it truly was for the good of all. The whistle returned, and Mina lit up. They deserved a drink, she thought.

They popped back a few too many ales in the tavern, girls sitting around them and listening to their increasingly exciting tale of the royal coach and how they managed to take down the most heavily guarded entourage in the kingdom.

Mina, particularly, became a bit more swashbuckling as the night went on, and to hear her tell it to the group of girls who surrounded her, she had single-handedly taken down every single guard, made Prince John cry, and charmed the horses into thinking that they were goats. If they thought she was lying, they did not seem to say so, but such as it was, she was buying drinks for the entire tavern, so it may not have been in their best interest to do so.

They did not always come to town- it was dangerous to be seen out so soon after the robbery. But Prince John was likely gathering himself after such a humiliation. He would want to keep this quiet, to not let his subjects know that he was powerless before a couple of orphan girls who had no military training and yet could outwit every one of his guards.

Ruka danced with the pretty barmaid she favored when she came to town, a lively tune inspiring her, the sweet scent of the girl intoxicating even as she blushed when the girl kissed her cheek. The balladeer started up another tune, this one new but already loved deeply by the people of Nottingham, the story of their own personal guardian angels.

"Oh, there's a tale we live to tell, in all these tavern halls, of Ruka Hood and Little Mina."

"LITTLE MINA AND RUKA HOOD!"

Tucked behind their robes, Mina and Ruka sat as the parade of horses and lords went past, Mina bored and gnawing on an apple, Ruka barely paying attention to the pageantry, but enjoying the looks of fear on the nobles' faces as they rode by. Yes, this was her domain, and nobody could take that from her.

They leaned against the wall in shadow, watching the parade of nobles pass by. Mina enjoyed watching them, making mental lists of what they must carry with them, wondering how easy it would be to get them alone, wondering what they were particularly weak for. Everybody had a weakness, she figured, and it was her job to exploit it. Rich people had their senses dulled by a life of getting everything they needed anyhow. Men were doubly so. She didn't really care for either.

Haruka pulled the apple out of her bag and began to cut off chunks with her knife, occasionally sticking one on the point of the blade and passing it over to her small blonde compatriot. These sort of things more or less bored her, important though they were. She preferred the action of the steal, the feel of the bow in her hands. But the apple was sweet and good, and the day was pleasant, and in any case, Ruka was well aware of the utter futility of arguing with Mina.

The last of the nobles began to ride by, and Ruka began to turn toward the hamlet, grateful that the line of polished tree stumps they called the leaders of this country were coming to a close. But then something caught her eye. At first she thought she was imagining things, as she had a thousand times before, her own personal fata morgana designed before her very eyes.

But then she looked closer, stepping out into the sunlight, ignorant to the danger in this moment, a moth following into the candle. It was her. Maid Michiru. The years had turned her from the bud of a girl into a bloom so verdant, Ruka felt she might never see a woman like that again. All the garden of every love she'd ever known wilted and died in the light of her love for this one girl, thundering back into her heart like the king's horses coursing after game. It was then, she realized, it have never really left. It had simply waited.

No noble sat by her side, simply her handmaiden. Was it too much to hope that such a beautiful creature had remained a Maid for so long? She continued to walk toward where she was riding, drawing back her hood, her face soaking up the sunlight of her-

Small hands clutched the back of her coat and pulled her into the blacksmith's shop. She was slammed against the wall and moved to protest her treatment, but her mouth was covered by a hand tasting vaguely of apple.

"Are you out of your gourd?" Mina hissed angrily. "We are wanted for TREASON AGAINST THE KING, and you are going to wander into the street, face uncovered, into a passel of nobles? If you've grown tired of living, I'll happily relieve you of the burden!"

Haruka smiled brightly and hugged Mina tightly, lifting her off of the ground. "Maid Michiru is here! And I suspect she's unmarried! This is a wonderful day!"

Mina wiggled out of her arms like a greased pig. "Yes, I'll be sure to tell the chambermaid to stoke up the fires and have cookie make an extra special meat pie for the banquet. Tell the stableboy to get your white horse to go romance the high-born Lady, I'll call the tailor to outfit you in your finest silks, and AM I GETTING THROUGH TO YOU AT ALL, RUKA HOOD?" Ruka's face fell, crushed like a dried violet under the reality of Mina's words. The blacksmith stared at them, and Mina threw him a gold coin. "For your discretion. Ruka, someday you have to let this go. She may as well be dead, for the likelihood you have of marrying the likes of her."

She tugged Ruka's hand as they walked away from the spectacle.

"It's been so many years, she can't possibly remember me, Setsuna." Michiru gazed out the window and down at the courtyard. "I feel as if I've spent the whole of my life as a decoration. A painting, shut away in a room, something ornamental for a forgotten corner of the castle." She frowned and sighed deeply.

Setsuna braided Michiru's hair in her comforting, motherly way. "They say that love goes on for centuries. What is ten years, my small lady?"

"We were so very young." She turned to the handmaiden who had been her only friend in the ensuing years and smiled. "And I'm no longer so small, dear Setsuna."

"Yes." Setsuna looked down and touched Michiru's hand. "Prince John has told me such things as well. He says you are too old to still be a maid."

The smile dropped from Michiru's face as he she rose from the window seat. And walked over to the cedar chest, not bothering to comment on Setsuna's warning. She picked up the poster, purloined by a young boy they had convinced to deliver it for several gold pieces. Michiru lovingly touched the inky drawing on the parchment. "To know she is alive, to know she's here- Setsuna, I have never felt such a passionate hope for anything. "

Setsuna looked at her young charge. She still remembered that first painful night, Michiru's tears falling quietly, without so much as a whimper, as the blonde girl fell into the road, cracked by the whip in a way the driver would not have dared touch a horse. The trust had been slowly won between them. Michiru had not spoken all that night, or indeed, for a week. She was so stubborn. Setsuna liked that instantly. And she was not willful in the way men are so used to looking for- She did not yell, she did not scream, but she was silent and immoveable, noble and graceful even as she denied men the pleasure of her conversation, a statue for veneration but untouchable and unknowable.

But she could be very charming, when she wished it, and so Prince John had found himself much aggrieved on a number of occasions at the disappointed suitors walking away from the castle. It was something he intended to make right, no matter how many times Setsuna had tried to tell him to be patient and wait for her to find her love.

But there was no reason to dampen the excitement of Maid Michiru's- life would do that soon enough. "She is handsome, isn't she?"

Michiru gazed at the poster. "When I see her, I shall paint her, just as I've always hoped. She looks so different now."

Setsuna put an arm around her. "Children do grow up, my Lady."

"Yes." She rolled up the poster and hid it away in her trunk. "Setsuna, we must find her. I can't wait for my destiny to find me for the rest of my life."

Setsuna smiled. "This certainly is a change in you." She had never seen Maid Michiru so alight for anything in the whole of her life.

But, of course, fire can burn.

It was not very long before fate, or God, or whatever you happen to believe in, intervened in our young lovers' story.

"Mina, they are having an archery contest, and the whole kingdom is invited." She jumped about excitedly. "The prize is a new bow, and 50 gold pieces!"

"I'm certainly glad this doesn't sound like an obvious trap." She shook her head and continued sharpening her sword. Ruka was the greatest friend she had, and the closest thing she posessed to anything resembling family, but her lack of foresight was somewhere between tiring and disturbing at times. And to think, she was the one to lecture Mina whenever she felt something was too dangerous.

"But you haven't heard the most wonderful part! There will be Maids and Ladies from the kingdom there, and you can pledge for their favor, and Maid Michiru has been called up from Tollwood, Mina, Maid Michiru will be there, after all these years." She knelt down in front of Mina, refusing to be ignored, and set Mina's sword aside. "I can pledge her favor, be the archer for my Lady." She smiled dreamily and began to fantasize about seeing her, touching her hand, hearing the musical tone of her voice. Was it took very much to hope for that she might favor Ruka with a kiss? On the cheek or the head of course, Ruka did not want to ask for so very much at first, Michiru was a Lady and deserving of fine courtship.

Mina took Ruka's head in her hands. "Wonderful. She can toss you a handkerchief before Prince John strings you up and she can see how lovely you look in a shade of blue."

Ruka stood up and took her bow, undaunted by Mina's discouragement. "I'll wear a disguise. And I will pledge her favor, and win the tournament, and then I will, in secret, reveal myself to her." She danced with her bow for a moment, waltzing it around the forest. "I will tell her how I love her, how I have always loved her, and if she merely tolerates my presence, I will serve her forever. She could be my Lady for all time, and I will make her so happy!" She giggled like a child, and Mina's frustrations broke through.

"Lady of what? A cobbled together forest camp? She may find our grand gardens a little disappointing, and you'll have to tell Mako Scarlett that stew's off the menu because her Ladyship is used to pheasant pie."

Ruka's face fell. How could she be so foolish? "You're right, of course." She slumped down onto a rock near the stream. "Fine Ladies don't marry orphans." She closed her eyes, her face downcast, and tossed her bow to the forest floor.

Mina walked away from her for a minute, tugging on her long rose gold braid, mumbling to herself. "Ignore the sad face, ignore the sad face, ignore the sad face- GODDAMNIT" She whirled around, stormed back to where Ruka sat, and laid a hand on her shoulder. "I've a plan. We'll get you in that tournament. We'll get you to Maid Michiru. Who knows? Maybe she'll fall in love and come be a Merry Maid. I'm sure she has some useful skill, like reading poetry or playing the damn har-"

Ruka scooped her up in a tight hug. "I know it'll work! And while we're there we'll best the Sheriff! Give hope to the people!"


	3. The Violet Blooms Again

"Well, let's drink to this disaster." Mina held the ale to her lips, her brain imagining a thousand possibilities. This was not the sort of situation she relished. There were too many variables, it was too hard to create a concrete exit strategy, and too much relying on Ruka's ability to keep a character going for hours. Add all that to the absolute certainty that this tournament was created as a trap for them, and Mina was not feeling particularly hopeful.

It was well known that there was no archer that could best Ruka Hood in the shire, and perhaps the entire kingdom. There had been many occasions that Prince John had attempted to leverage this with her natural competitiveness, her desire to be the greatest in all of England. But her good sense and responsibility to the Merry Maids had always kept her away- it had never been so much as a discussion between she and Mina, it was simply an unspoken understanding, the way so much of their lives had always been.

But once again, Maid Michiru proved the jewel that Ruka could not resist, no matter the danger. Mina wondered if Prince John somehow knew- it had always been rather unclear to her how much Prince John knew of she and Ruka and the Merry Maids. He had denied their existence even as his men put out wanted posters for their arrest, the bounty on their heads growing ever higher. She and Ruka were possibly the most valuable livestock in the kingdom, now. Who knew you could get so much for a pair of asses in Nottingham?

"Ruka, you cannot win the match."

Ruka adjusted her archer's cap. "Oh, of course I'm going to win the match."

"Let me stop myself." She leaned forward on the rock where she sat. "I know you can win the match. We all know you can win the match. Prince John is counting on you to win. Ruka, if you win the match, they will make you in an instant. They will kill you, and me, and all of us."

Haruka pouted a little. "You expect me to lose in front of Maid Michiru?"

Mina got up from her place by the fire and walked over to where the stew sat bubbling, pouring herself another ladleful of the rich, thick meal peppered with venison. She turned around to face Ruka, hand on her hip. "No, I expect you to ignore me entirely, win the whole tournament and get us all killed, but I'd hardly be a half-decent leader if I didn't mention it, now wouldn't I be?"

Ruka grabbed the rough sack of clothes Mina had traded from the fripper for her disguise. She felt a brush of soft cloth and pulled it out to examine it in the firelight. The dark velvet sparkled in the light, with a delicate embroidery of pale daisies near the neckline. Haruka's brows knitted, confused for a moment, holding the dress up against her.

"Mina, I am not wearing this!"

Mina looked up from the piece of stew-soaked cocket she was gnawing on. "Well, of course not, you great idiot, look at the size of it."

Ruka looked back down at the gown against her body, tiny and delicate. "This is more your like."

"You think I'm going to let you go alone?" She finished her meal and brushed the crumbs off her lap. "I don't hardly trust you to go to the market without forgetting something, you think I'm going to let you go into the belly of the beast without a little help?"

Ruka dug through the bag and pulled out a green men's tunic and a dark pair of breeches. A wide brown belt complimented the two, which were simple but clean and fairly new. Ruka was tempted to wonder if the fripper had stolen them off a dead body, but if someone was so foolish as to bury their dead in new clothes, she supposed any consequences were theirs to have.

She smiled up at Mina. "I see yours are a bit finer, eh?"

She strolled over to Ruka and wrapped an arm around her back. "You, my friend, only have to shoot straight, and bat your pretty little eyes at the fairheaded Maid Michiru. I, however, have to charm the very nobles off their seats, convince them I belong among them, get in close enough to put a penknife to a royal back if the hour should come." She looked up at Ruka conspiratorially. "Requires a bit more panache than shooting a number of sticks around."

"If shooting a number of sticks around were so easy, I suspect you'd do it."

Mina scowled at her. "You want to romance the fair maiden, or you want to snipe at me? Choose wisely."

"Alright, alright, Mina."

She leaned in to the fire and signaled for the rest of the girls to come nearer to her, faces pressed together against the light of the fire. "Now, my plan is this..."

Michiru leaned back in the tub, imagining Haruka's strong, fine, young hands on her shoulders. The warm water caressed her every muscle, and she closed her eyes against the sweet scent of the oils rising up from the tub. She ran her hand against the curve of her side, fantasizing about each touch of Ruka's firm hands against the soft, yielding flesh of her body.

_Lying side by side, next to the fire. She blushes just a bit as she unties the back of Michiru's dress, but Michiru guides her hands to her breasts, offering up ever inch of herself in warm and the dark. She slides her hand up Ruka's tunic, finally feels her- her muscles are like a deer in the spring, full of youthful tension and ready to spring in action, quivering with energy. _

Michiru sighed heavily as her hands slowed worked their way through the water, down her body. She pictured the reward poster in her cedar chest as she delicately flicked-

Setsuna strode into the tub room, a smile on her face. "My small lady!" She stopped, staring at Michiru in the tub. "I-um-I..."

Michiru sat up and blushed heavily. "Setsuna, a bit of warning would be appropriate!"

Setsuna bowed her small bow, but a playful smile stayed upon her lips. "Prince John has asked me to inform you that there will be a festive carnival for the people, to celebrate your finally coming to the palace at Nottingham. His Royal Highness craves your attendance." Her smile grew bigger. "I can think of occasion to attend that you might...crave, if you will."

Michiru would normally pout at Setsuna's gentle teasing, but she was too excited to remember that she should. "Oh, do you think Ruka will compete, dear Setsuna?!" She stood up in the tub and signaled for her robe.

Setsuna drew the robe around her. "I think it almost inevitable." She helped Michiru out of the tub guided her next to the window, where she began brushing her hair. "Prince John is offering a mighty purse at the archery tournament."

It was always a wonder to Setsuna, the beautiful foolishness of the young and in love. She hardly remembered being that age, where you could be told nothing, and nothing mattered. It had always been different for her, of course, she thought as she brushed out her lady's long hair, readying to style it in the intricate plaits and forms of court. She had been the last of seven born to her father, Lord Chronos, who had found himself deeply in debt all those years ago, and had sent her as 'a sign of good faith' to the high court. That 'sign of good faith' had, of course, been a sale, in the only way that a young girl of nobility could be sold into servitude. With no property or riches to offer a mate, and being of, she thought average intelligence and beauty, it had perhaps been best this way. Her sisters Persephone, Macaria, and Melinoe- well, what little riches they had, had gone to support their marriages, and with the death of her father, the house of Chronos was no more. And she had tried to give up dreaming. There had been a young queen, once, but that was so long ago...

The sparkle in Michiru's eyes when she spoke Ruka's name reminded her of that foolishness, and made her smile to think that love like that never truly goes away, it just finds a new host.

"Setsuna, whatever shall I wear? I haven't laid an eye upon her in ten years." She turned around, halfway through having her hair braided, and began to go through her chests and wardrobes, excited and alive with the possibilities of gazing upon that creature that had haunted her dreams for so long. "This merits careful consideration, and me with not even the time to have a new gown made for me, how can Prince John be planning to present me to the people and all the minor nobility without a new gown?" Her brow furrowed intensely as she looked into the king's ransom of unsuitable silk and richly embroidered velvet.

"My lady, do you imagine you will be overly concerned with whatever she happens to wear?" Setsuna sat down on the bed and threw up her hands.

Michiru stopped for a moment, and looked over at her beloved handmaiden. "No, I suppose not."

"Well then."

Michiru walked over to the bed and sat beside Setsuna, sighing in exasperation.

Setsuna laid a reassuring hand on her hair. "I think the green with the silver embroidery suits you the best."

Michiru smiled. "Oh, I do hope she remembers me!"

Ruka nervously adjusted the wig under her archer's cap. Mina had made her remove the long pheasant's feather she usually stuck on it, reminding her that there was no real reason to wear a disguise if she was simply going to write her name on the cap. Her quiver was a plain one she'd traded from one of the other girls, but she had kept the bow she'd used for so many years—She wasn't to win, as Mina had reminded her several times over the course of the morning, but that didn't mean she wished to make a poor showing. Maid Michiru would be there.

Would she even recognize her? It had been so many years, and she was so much taller, so much leaner, her nose grown sharper. It was true enough that Michiru did not look the same either, but she still carried that unique quality of endless beauty. She was Aphrodite, and Ruka was a shepherd, and she could hardly expect a goddess to remember someone like her. Not that it mattered at all if she had remembered her. She hoped for nothing more than a glance.

She looked out over the green, verdant field where the archery contest was to take place. This year had been a particularly good one for the community, so far as the cooperation of the soil and the rain and whatever spirit of the earth you happened to believe in. You would be excused for not seeing that, as poor as everyone was in Nottingham, the Crusades and Prince John's lavish tastes purchased on the backs of the people. It gave Ruka no pleasure to know that when she died, she would be marked as a traitor o the crown and a criminal. But as Rei often said, only God can be the true judge of the crime, and whatever the royals said about their divine appointment, she was disinclined to agree. The prize meant nothing to Ruka. She would give it to Rei to distribute to the people, holding back a little to replenish their food stores and maybe buy a new blanket or two for the tents.

It was then that she noticed Mina, in her pretty little burgundy gown, chatting up the Sheriff of Nottingham, laughing gaily and entertaining the whole of the military guard as she drew closer and closer to Prince John. Ruka did not even bother to ask how—These men had seen her time and again, and yet did not recognize her when she put on a different wrapping. Part of it was Mina's gift, to be sure. But part of it was the constant inadequacy of men's attentions. As Mina had once told her, 'They run the world, but they look at the same woman every day and can't tell when she's bought a new ornament for her hair. Meantime, I braid my hair in a new pattern and every one of the Merry Maids is asking me about it. Seems misplaced, that.' And so Mina merrily slapped the knee of the man who was hunting her and would love nothing more than to hang her high, with nary a care.

But, Ruka was slightly embarrassed to admit to herself, she had not looked that direction to find Mina. King Richard may have been off seeking the Grail, but Ruka had her own unearthly treasure to find, here in Nottingham. Not finding it with the Prince, she nosed around the tournament field, her eyes finally resting upon a line of young men, coming before a set of elevated seats, where young noblewomen sat and took pledges of loyalty and requests of favor. There, seated in her rightful place at the center of all somesuch beauty, was her Lady of long ago, Maid Michiru.

She came before Michiru, head bowed, and recited the speech she and Mina had devised in the dark quiet of their tend, laid out on their bedrolls. "My Lady, this one asks for your favor in this contest. I know many must seek it, but I tell you that I am a good and am honorable boy, and my talent with a bow is not unconsiderable." She looked up at Michiru, who sat toying with her sleeve, bored by the parade of young common men who had pledged themselves to her over the course of the day. "I have waited many years to pledge to you anew."

But Michiru seemed not to catch the hint of the past in her voice, nor its quiet desperation, and simply nodded her head, not even looking up. "Yes, boy, of course. I wish you luck in today's trial, and may you truly serve the Prince in your quest for glory. Long live the King." She rattled it off like a schoolboy might a rushed Hail Mary after confession, without any feeling beyond wishing it was already over.

Ruka frowned, but persisted. "My Lady, I'm afraid I only have this small gift." She extended her hand to reveal one small violet. "But I pray it honors you."

Michiru's eyes lit up as she took the violet from her hand, not looking up at first, the expression on her face soft and moved, but with a little fear, too, as if when she finally dared to gaze upon the voice she heard, it would be a false god. She gathered her strength of will and tiled her face up toward the young archer, instantly recognizing her, even after so long. The soft grey of her eyes, Michiru thought, like the storm when it came in over the sea, had not changed in all these ten years. "And your name, young archer?"

"Robin, m'lady." She looked in Michiru's eyes, still disbelieving that the seraph who had called to her in all her dreams sat in front of her, imagining that she would wake up at any moment.

"Robin. My handmaiden has taught me much of the poetry of names, you know, young Robin. Such a name signifies someone bright and shining. Is that not incorrect, Setsuna?" Setsuna nodded knowingly at the two of them, and Michiru smiled softly. "I see how your mother came to such a name."

A soft blush, like a sunrise, rose to her cheeks. She had not considered her name so deeply when she had chosen it—It had simply been her father's name, and to have Maid Michiru apply so much weight to her undeserving name left her mute, and she could only smile crookedly.

Michiru seemed to sense that no response was forthcoming, and stood to her feet, taking a finely embroidered cloth from the tender breast of her dress. It was still warm from the heat of her body as she presented it to Ruka, the embroidered birds on the cloth seeming to sing with the passion flowing between the two of them. "It is only fair, to exchange one gift for another."

Haruka took it with both hands, as if accepting a precious relic. "You kerchief-of-pleasure. And me no knight, without so much as a helmet to affix it to."

"I have found, Robin, that knighthood is a matter of the soul rather than a helmet." She drew close to Ruka, bent over the wooden divider, and put her hand on Ruka's cheek. Her voice was soft and warm and silky as a sable blanket. "I suggest you wear it next to your heart."

They were even closer now, faces almost touching, and Setsuna gently pulled her back. "Oh, Maid Michiru, I do believe the tournament is about to begin!" Michiru turned back to her handmaiden as if to admonish her, but then saw Prince John looking over at where she sat.

"Yes, of course." She turned back to Ruka. "I do wish you the best of luck, my young archer."

Mina playfully bantered with the Prince as the horns began to ring out, signifying the tournament had begun. "Do you have a favorite among these commoners, sire?"

"My good Lady Brigitte," he smirked. "You should know that a father never has favorites among his children."

"Well, I know a father claims to never have favorites, but always slips something special to the oldest son, you know what I mean?" She laughed, showing her teeth in a way the Prince found delightful and garish, her foreign accent unmistakeable and yet impossible to place. "I wonder if it's not the good Sheriff you cheer for."

He leaned back and clasped the armrests of the gilded throne. "It would be good, for the people to see that the law is the greatest power."

Mina adjusted the small circlet in her hair and elbowed his arm. "I've heard a lot about the power of the law in tavern halls, you Majesty, if you catch my meaning."

Prince John laughed. "How common, where did you say you were from, my Lady, where such talk is traditional for a woman of your standing?"

She froze for a moment, her mind racing with any mystical land she might have heard of. "I come from the farthest reaches of Jersey, where we are taught to be jesters as well as ladies, clever but always quick with a gentle caress."

Luckily, further inquiries were stemmed by the plunging of an arrow from both Ruka and the Sheriff in the middle of the target. A roar went up from the crowd, every common person there wanting to see someone, anyone, defeat the Sheriff, to strike one blow for them.

Mina looked over at the Prince and decided to try her luck one more time. No point in sitting on the edge of a volcano if you aren't going to throw anything into it, she reasoned. "I have heard, ah, that there is an archer here, the Ruka Hood?"

Prince John nearly spat out his wine as he faced her, red with rage. "Ruka Hood is nothing but a useless urchin, scraping by on the scraps that her betters have dropped. I will kill her, and her little Merry Maids, and I will have their heads put on pikes, their eyes eaten by crows."

"So you don't think she'll be around today?"

The targets were moved back to their furthest point, and Mina was taken from her reverie of the great act of being Lady Brigitte, realizing that the final match was at had, and her great and beloved fool of a friend, Ruka Hood, was still standing on the field, next to the Sheriff of Nottingham, and about to take a final shot. A thousand thoughts coursed through her mind like dogs after the fox, most of them some vairation on 'Don't you dare' and 'I told you a thousand times.'

But Ruka did not possess the wisdom of her tiny compatriot, and the roar of the crowd was loud in her ears. She pulled back the bow, and felt all eyes on her, but only one set mattered. Like the light through the stained glass in Rei's church, she felt Michiru's gaze enrich her soul. The only feeling in her body was the soft touch of the embroidered birds against her skin, and she loosed the string, the arrow flying straight and true, flying as Ruka to her lady, and there it was: A perfect bulls-eye.

The people rose up in an uproarious cheer, their greatest champion a man they did not know, but it did not matter, for on this one day, the people had proven themselves stronger than the Prince's corruption and darkness.

It was in this glorious and uplifting moment that Ruka caught Mina's eye, and suddenly began to realize the folly of the whole affair. Nose to nose with Prince John, there was no escape from her fate. He would have to recognize her, he certainly had well enough to have her portrait drawn for the wanted poster. But here she stood, in front of him, a bag of gold in hand, everyone seemingly relaxed and casual except for Mina, who looked as if she wasn't sure if she wanted to rescue Ruka or murder her herself.

Prince John stood up from his throne. "Truly, you are the greatest archer in all the land. I think we should reward this in a appropriate way, young Robin. Come forward." He smiled broadly and indicated for his sword. "Young Robin, I now dub thee," He tipped off her hat and her wig, Ruka standing erect as they fell to the ground. "Ruka Hood, a HANGED WOMAN."

The guards fell upon her, and before she could so much as draw the small penknife from her belt, they had her arms tied behind her, a noose around her neck. Prince John cackled as they dragged her closer to him, lifting her off her feet and choking her. They threw her to the ground in front of him, the dst rising around her with the force of the blow.

Prince John loomed over her, bent over the same wooden divider that so very recently had been the source of all Ruka's greatest desires. "For treason against the crown, I sentence you to be hung by the neck until dead, dead, dead!"

Ruka lifted herself to her knees and snarled. "I've committed no treason, for that crown belongs to King Richard, and you can kill me, but you cannot kill the truth of that. LONG LIVE KING RICHARD!"

The crowd began to echo her words, the chanting growing ever louder, like an approaching storm rolling off the sea, and even the guards lifting her by her neck could do nothing to stop the thunderous cries of a hungry and mistreated people. It was fitting, Ruka thought, that her death should be accompanied with the holiest chant she knew, the only chant that she ever believed could change anything. They wound the rope around the branch of a tree, and began to pull her up, the pain in her neck competing with the struggle for air competing to see which could torture her better, the twin demons of her current hell. Suddenly, a clear voice, like a church bell, cut through the fog of pain, and she dropped back to the grass, gasping.

"Stop! In the name of mercy, stop!" The crowd all turned to face the voice, a tiny figure all in green commanding their attention. Michiru looked to Prince John, pleading. "Good your Majesty, on this day, which is to celebrate my arrival, I do not wish for bloodshed, most vehemently! I have a tender heart, and cannot bear to see this girl hung on such a festive day. Please, sire, gift her that divine mercy, which I know rests in that most regal of hearts. Let her free. As a boon to me, personally." She blinked, and tears came to her eyes.

Prince John extended his arm to her. "Oh you sweet young bud, so naïve in the ways of the world. How I value that soft tenderness. But no, good Lady, you cannot understand the danger of this blaggard. Not all women are so worthy of mercy as you. Setsuna, please remove her so she does not see. Guards, continue." He waved her hand as if he were bored, trying to hide his glee at watching her strangled.

They tugged on the rope, but it snapped instantly, and as they looked up, Mina swung from the sky. "Good morrow, lads!" She dropped into the middle of them, and swung her sword wide. "I'm afraid we'll have to save the invitation for a later date." She took the moment of surprise to cut the rope binding Ruka's hands and took the quiver and bow from her back, handing them quickly to Ruka, who rubbed her neck gently. Mina poked her in the ribs. "Make yourself useful for once in this life."

Ruka quickly picked up the weapons and shot through the first wave of guards, Mina slashing forward at anyone who passed through the quick arrows flying through the air. The fought their way toward the seats where the royals and nobles sat, Prince John screaming to kill them, the guards tripping up on themselves.

Michiru laughed, unable to conceal her delight as the clumsy royal guard, unable to outwit two girls of the forest, began pointing fingers and blaming each other, the cries of the Prince becoming closer and closer to a whine as Mina began filching valuables from the nobles still seating, the common people gathered laughing and cheering.

Ruka jumped up onto the wooden seats and sat next to Maid Michiru for a moment as the nobles began to scatter. "Well, fancy seeing you here, my Lady."

Michiru smiled coyly as Ruka loosed another arrow. "Well, you do know how to liven up a dull party, don't you, Ruka Hood?"

"Madam, I assure you, a day with me will never be a dull one." She patted her breast. "I will keep your favor next to my heart, in the hope that someday I will have favor in yours."

Michiru giggled. "You had it before you did request it!"

Ruka picked up a sword, stood, and swung at the noble behind her, knocking him off of his balance and into the small table full of food and wine, breaking it and spilling all into himself, cursing wildly.

Mina turned her head to yell at Ruka. "Excuse you, what did the grape of the Lord ever do to you, Ruka Hood? No wonder we're never invited back to parties."

"My apologies, Little Mina, I forget myself in front of beautiful women." She winked at Michiru and crouched down beside her. "If ever you need mercy, you will find it in Sherwood Forest. I will wait a thousand years more to hear your voice again."

"Star-crossed lover, we need to go!" Mina swept back what was left of the guards. "We shouldn't wait around for the next wave of guests, MY SWEET."

Ruka hurried over to where she was, on the edge of the woods, and they both ducked behind a bush, disappearing easily into the green they knew so well.

Mina reappeared, at the top of a tree, laughing. "The hospitality was excellent, the entertainment delightful, you'll pardon me if I don't send a note. Until we meet again, my turtledoves!" A quiverful of arrows came at her, but she easily ducked back into the darkness of the forest, Michiru still quietly laughing while Prince John fumed.

Night had fallen over the castle, and Prince John, tired from his hours of yelling, had slipped off to bed, ordering his niece to her room, where Setsuna sat, quietly embroidering.

"Setsuna, you are from Nottingham, I recall?" She knelt in front of Setsuna, her bright eyes locked against Setsuna's.

"Aye, my small lady." She knew the request that was coming—For all that Prince John complained that Michiru was entirely inscrutable, Setsuna could read her well after so many years together. Her young charge did not disappoint.

"Then you must know the forest. Ruka Hood and her Merry Maids all live there." She took Setsuna's hands in hers. "I do long to see her. I've never asked so much of you since I was a child, I know, my sweet Setsuna. Please." She straightened up, her eyebrow arched. "If you shall not accompany me, I will find my own way, anyhow."

Setsuna sighed. Her duty had been to protect Michiru from harm, to raise her, to mold her into the young Lady who would marry well and manage a household of servants and bring forth sons. No one had ever mentioned to her the possibility of an outlaw suitor in the middle of the woods as a hazard of raising this child. She was ever-cognizant of the fact that Prince John would not see her accompanying this lovesick girl to Sherwood Forest as protection.

"It is dangerous, my child, and the Maids are not to be trifled with, in the dark, in the night." She looked away, could not bear to deny those eyes so full of passion and pleading. She recognized her own old love for the queen in them, and it burned in her as surely as any torchlight.

"But my dear Setsuna," she burbled on, clinging to the bedpost and leaning toward her handmaiden, not even slowed by the warning or the possibility of danger. "She is my love, and I am hers, and surely they will know we are coming. Love will always find a way."

Setsuna could not bring herself to tell her of her love, and how it had found a way only into a dark, locked box, where she hid it away from all the world, and smiled as she married another, and smiled as she bore sons, and smiled as she died. Her small lady would learn soon enough this was the way of the world.

"Setsuna, I am going anyhow."

Setsuna nodded. "I shall ready the horses."


	4. Things Remembered

Setsuna had always been told never to go into the forest at night. In the day, the forest was green and lush and full of life, the sun dappling the gentle streams that ran through her, the song of the birds and the squirrels in perfect harmony with all of life. But at night, Setsuna had been told, the forests were controlled by the fae, and their whims were inscrutable and had nothing to do with the delight or displeasure of man. It was a question of a moon, humans just another pawn in the game. It was strange, to her, when her father had told her that story, for, as nearly as she could tell, women's lives were already like that, being moved about on a board without a question of their own desires

And so for taking her life into her own hands, Setsuna had to look upon her small lady with a certain sense of pride. There was a calm and gentle wind in the air that seemed to be edging them onward, through the dark of the trees, the moon serving only to lengthen the shadows and stoke their imaginations, not to reassure them. The feeling of being guided was unmistakeable, each turn seemed to make sense, but she could not divine whether it was to their safety or their tragedy. Neither she nor Michiru spoke as they rode on through the forest, their horses quietly following the path through the trees.

And then her lady's clear voice broke the night. "Setsuna, I believe I just saw a will-o-the-wisp."

They stopped for a moment, and Setsuna heard a low whistle on the air, though she had never known the birds of Sherwood to sing in the dark of the night. There was a response, coming from across the trees, and Michiru turned her head, seemingly thinking the same as Setsuna. Then it was calm and quiet, the only sounds the breathing of their horses and the quiet crackle of their torch. Then, directly above them, three sharp whistles, their torch extinguished, and suddenly they were enveloped by the darkness. Noises swirled around them, Michiru felt the point of a knife at her back as she was unceremoniously unhorsed, thrown to the ground and commanded to stay. Setsuna managed to catch one of them across the face with the butt end of her torch, and was quickly rewarded for the maneuver with rope around her neck, drug to the ground next to her lady. Out of the darkness, a small light, and then their torch was aflame again, in the hands of a tall girl seemingly composed of a stone wall, her long brown hair pulled back into a neat tail.

They were surrounded. Spears and knives were pointed at them as the group of girls laughed merrily, as if this had been some sort of game. They teased and poked at each other, as they lay claim to Michiru and Setsuna's jewels and fur wrap and even their saddles and horses.

Michiru drew herself to her feet, chin raised in defiance. "You brigands should know that I know Ruka Hood."

There was a pause as they all stared at her, and then peals of laughter, tumbling over each other like a waterfall.

The tall brown-haired girl mockingly put a hand on her cheek in surprise. "Oh you know Ruka Hood? Well, we certainly should let you go, then!"

"Who doesn't know Ruka Hood? We've seen reward posters too, you know!" A blonde girl with two plaits rifled through the bags on Michiru's horse as she chatted, pulling out things of interest and sticking them in the purse at her hip.

A girl whose hair seemed almost blue in the light smiled shyly, but could not stop herself from joining in. "Ruka Hood is rather terrifying, though."

A tiny girl with black hair laughed as she shoved Maid Michiru back down to the ground. "I find it most terrifying how she always takes the last of the stew."

"Or how she hogs the fire."

"God above, save me from Ruka Hood!" They all burst into another stream of laughter, tossing Michiru and Setsuna's things on the ground. One of them grabbed the fur wrap from Michiru's back, foot against her back, shoving her into the dirt road.

Pure rage flashed across Michiru's face, but Setsuna grabbed her forearm before she could rise again. "My small lady, I believe these are the Merry Maids of Sherwood Forest." She looked at Michiru with an urgent caution.

"Well then, they are Ruka's, and so have no cause to harm me." She spoke with her usual flippant calm and straightened an out of place hair behind her circlet, as if she were tidying to go downstairs to a banquet, and not surrounded by a small group of armed outlaws, but stayed seated on the ground.

She nodded slowly "Well, I certainly hope they know that."

The tall one took the gold coins and started to lead Setsuna's horse. "Well, this goes toward the commissary."

The blonde girl arched her eyebrow. "We're going to eat the horse?"

"The gold, Usagi, not the horse."

"We're going to eat the gold?"

The small dark-haired one sighed heavily. "To think, I was the one Mina thought might not be useful." She turned back toward the two women on the ground. "Should we kill them or let them go? They know where we are."

The slight girl with the bluish hair gently indicated toward them, seemingly troubled by the idea. "They only know we're in the forest, and that's common enough knowledge."

"Mina would say to kill them." She argued back.

The tall one looked over at her, hand on her hip. "Oh, Mina says to kill everyone, unless they say her name first by some miracle." She looked down at the two. "But we likely should at least rough them up some. I don't want people to get encouraged."

The girls all nodded, and started to descend upon Michiru and Setsuna, who backed against a tree, the surety suddenly gone from Michiru's face. The light of the torch began to dim as the girls crowded over them, grabbing at them, when suddenly there was a call in the dark.

"Stop!" Ruka's voice echoed through the trees, Michiru instantly noting its power and strength against the quiet of the night. She came into the light of the torches, a worried expression on her face as she gathered Michiru from the forest floor. Her arms were slender but strong, the lean sinew of someone who has spent their life hauling and running and drawing a bow swooping her up in a smooth motion. Ruka set her on her feet, but Michiru could not tell, as the world seemed to fall away.

Ruka turned angrily toward the group of girls. "What are you doing?"

Ami-a-Dale seemed chastened, but gave Ruka a confused look. "She didn't know the call, and was so close to camp…she's a noble, you know."

That particular sentence seemed to remind Ruka of her own station. She blushed, and removed her arms from around Michiru's waist. "She's not an enemy to us."

Michiru looked over at her, smiling. They gazed at each other for a moment in disbelief, finally allowed the full appreciation of the passing years that had been so quick and so frightening at the match. There were no words for a moment, both of them unsure of anything except the radiant joy they felt, being in each other's presence again. There was a story Setsuna had told her, once, about the shepherd Daphnis, who had become blinded when he had been separated from his love, forced to spend the rest of his days in darkness, only the memory of her face to keep him company. Michiru now knew she had stumbled in darkness for ten years, the scales falling away from her eyes here in the dim torchlight, before the sight of her beloved. She wasn't sure she believed in destiny, or at least any destiny that led to her happiness, no matter how many stories Setsuna had told her. And yet here she stood, next to Ruka.

There was a soft crunch from behind a tree, and Mina came out into the light, gnawing on a piece of bread. She leaned against the tree cavalierly, and half-heartedly saluted. "Ho there, milady."

Ruka's eyes grew wide as she stared over at Mina with a look of frustrated disbelief. "Were you in the tree the whole time? Watching this?"

"Well, I wasn't watching the whole time, there's a little nest of squirrels in the tree and you wouldn't believe how adorable the babies are" She threw down the last hardened crust to the forest floor and picked at her teeth. "I'd've stopped them before they killed her."

"You let them throw her to the ground!" Ruka left Michiru's side and stormed over to where Mina stood, the girls all straightening up as Haruka passed by, like soldiers before an angry commander, but Mina, seemingly unimpressed with the quality of Ruka's anger, stayed balanced against the tree. "Why didn't you stop them? Lead her to the camp?"

Mina stepped away from the tree and shrugged, arms crossed. "Well, if I'd have stopped her, she would have been stopped several miles ago." She pointed to the girls. "To be frank, I'm a mite disappointed in all of you." She began to walk into the darkness, back toward the camp.

Haruka nodded apologetically to Michiru and Setsuna. "Ladies, I will lead you to our camp, where there is hot food and ale and my endless apologies."

The other girls quickly fell into line, picking up Michiru and Setsuna's belongings from the forest floor, quietly apologizing.

Michiru smiled at Setsuna. "See, I told you there was nothing to fear, my dear Setsuna."

Mina turned around before fading entirely into the darkness. "We should blindfold them before we lead them to the camp."

Ruka growled from her position helping Maid Michiru onto her horse. "They're not our enemies."

Mina shook her head angrily. "Right, and you were so sure Prince John wasn't going to make you for Ruka Hood, too, wasn't you? Ruka, I love you, and I don't particularly enjoy calling you into question in front of God and everybody, but you've lost your goddamn mind." She walked back toward the group, eyes sharp like a hawk. "I said blindfold them!"

Ruka stepped toward her. "And I say, don't"

Mina stepped closer to her, not giving a single inch. "So you want to fight me, Ruka?"

"No, not at all, but I will."

The tall brunette stepped between them. "Both of you, stop this! There's no point and purpose to fighting like this." She looked cautiously at Ruka. "Mina may have the right of it. When we lead them out, we can decide if we want to blindfold them then. Give us a chance to trust them. Like you do."

Mina walked away, tossing her hand into the air as she disappeared into the dark. "That's fair enough!"

Ruka looked back at Michiru, sighing, but Michiru was already tying a wide silk ribbon over her eyes.

Down by the lazy river, they sat together, sitting on the rocks where Ruka had passed so much time near the camp. It felt strange, to be together in the quiet, with nothing between them and no particular hurry, just chatting back and forth about the lives they'd led apart, trying to learn the history of the other, piecing together the small stories and details that made up the quilt they each had become.

"So we escaped, that night, me and Little Mina, and Ami-a-dale, Mako Scarlett. Mina didn't want to bring Hotaru, the Barber's daughter, she was so very young, but I convinced her, and she had a bit of healing knowledge, and she's done us a great deal of service." She smiled over at Michiru, then looked at the ground and kicked the dirt. "We found our way here. It's deep in the forest. There's a good run of berries to the east. Lots of game." She nodded her head and Michiru proudly. "I did not lose one of them that winter, or ever. Not one."

Michiru rested her chin on her hand, looking out into the water. "I am not surprised in the slightest. Your care over smaller things has always been noted." She sighed. "I am sorry, for the bad blood this has caused you and Little Mina."

Ruka waved her hand. "She'll come right. She and I bicker about things all the time. Always have. Don't think on it, if it weren't you, it'd be something else."

Michiru giggled appreciatively, and moved on, skipping across topics like a stone across the water. "I note you've cut you hair some, since last we spoke."

She blushed and touched the back of her head. "I did it after we made out of Mother Mary's. Tired of it, I guess, just took a knife to the back of my head and sliced it off. It's a bit rough, I confess, but I just prefer it, I suppose." She tripped over her words like stones on a dimly-lit path. No matter how many times she had imagined this moment, imagined all the speeches she would give about love and fealty and honor, none of the words could make the journey to her tongue.

"I think it suits you rather well, despite your lack of credentials as a barber." She touched her fingers to the small hairs across the back of Haruka's neck, and her body lit up, candles on the altar to her long-lost love ablaze. "You look quite handsome."

"Uh, Mina helps me, clean up the back, sometimes." She instinctively touched her hand to the back of her neck, and her fingers met Michiru's. The touch was a surprise, and they dashed apart like two frightened deer. They realized too late that it might have been desired by the other, and simply smiled and fiddled with their own hands, sitting in the silence of the dark forest, a frog croaking now and again.

Michiru broke the silence of the night, her voice serious. "Prince John would have killed you, you know. Without a thought or a care." She looked over at Ruka. "I fear you dare too much, just for a glimpse of my face."

"Not you too." She skipped a rock across the slow, lazy river, and turned to Michiru. "I would dare anything just to look at you one more time." Her hand cupped Maid Michiru's face, and Michiru gazed up at her as the crickets sung quietly in the background, all the years seeming to disappear for an instant, just two children standing in a clearing, daring to love each other. She looked into Michiru's eyes, the moonlight softly illuminating every gentle brushstroke of her creation, as much care taken with her and with the most delicate rose in any royal garden.

"Oh?"

She quickly drew her hands away from Michiru's face. "I'm sorry, my hands are so rough."

Michiru held her hands tight, and kissed her fingertips gently. "I like your hands." She drew her face close to Ruka's, barely a ray of moonlight between them.

"JUST KISS ALREADY" They looked up, and there was Usagi, arms out, sitting in the tree, a disgusted look on her face, surrounded by the other girls, who at least had to common decency to blush.

Michiru laughed. "Don't look now, but I fear we're surrounded."

Ruka stood up. "You vultures! Go back to camp!"

The small wooden structure was dark, lit only by the candles Ruka set inside, but it was surprisingly well-built for being constructed of forest branches. Michiru looked at the two sheepskins laid on the ground, covered in wool blankets. She was surprised by the roughness of it all, and immediately felt a bit of embarrassment—She had lived in so much luxury, for so long, she had forgotten how the common people lived. Ruka's pride in the life she had created for her girls was obvious, her arms crossed over her chest, smiling brightly, as she had led Michiru, and a kindly indulgent Setsuna, around the camp, showing her the surveillance they had set up, the codes, the caves where they stored what food they had in the cool, and how Mako had managed to cook enough for all of them through the long winters. And then here, just the two of them, to where she laid her head every night, her small hovel shared with Mina that had protected them from so many long winter nights and heavy summer storms.

Michiru looked over the meager belongings of both of the girls, a bit of ribbon that must have been Mina's, a sling and stones that she imagined belonged to Ruka, and then a familiar and small tome, tucked halfway under the small sack of wool that must have served for pillow.

She picked up the prayerbook, worn, and obviously kept very close for so many years, laughing a little. "I would never have imagined you turning to the Lord, after all that we-" She flipped to a page, and there was a violet, pressed between two yellowed pages, brittle from the years but obviously protected in the book. She looked up at Ruka tenderly. "Is this from..."

"I never did learn to read." She shyly ruffled her hair, remembering those cold night in that small, dark, closet, her knees on the stone floor as she knelt by the candle, trying to keep warm, that prayerbook the only way she had of hiding and protecting the relic of her own saint.

Michiru delicately touched the edge of the dried flower. "I can't fathom you having kept this, all these years. Such a gentle sentiment."

"I never forgot you. Not one day did I forget, Maid Michiru." She took the prayerbook from her hands, making sure not to damage the violet as she closed the book. "I am a sentimental fool. Mina'll tell you that, too."

Michiru touched Ruka's face, drawing her eyes up to meet Michiru's. "I have been presented with jewels and poetry and spices from lands I've never heard of." She took Haruka's hand in both of hers. "And yet I've never been so touched by a gesture."

Haruka's voice was soft as she confessed. "I love you with all of my heart, Maid Michiru. I always have."

Michiru looked into those eyes she loved, those eyes that had always been filled with such honesty and courage, and she could no longer wait for Ruka to get over her blushing and stammering, whether she was a lady or no. She leaned into her and tilted her face delicately, pressing her lips to Ruka's, who started at first, and then relaxed in pleasant wonderment against the feel of her kiss. Michiru had expected it to be so like the kiss they had shared as children, but it was another matter entirely, so like comparing the light streaming through a stained glass window to the majesty of a moving sunrise. In all of her life, she would never have the words to explain that first kiss between them. Soft and strong, yearning and complete. It was the taste of a fresh strawberry at the end of summer, exploding in her mouth.

The animal skin pulled away from the door, and Setsuna poked her head in. "My lady!"

"Don't you ever give warning?" Michiru's soft, musical voice was decidedly less soft in this moment.

Setsuna smiled, but tried her best not to laugh. "The Prince will be looking for us in short order, I am certain. We should away. With immediacy." She ducked back out of the small wooden room, her footsteps getting further away as Michiru and Ruka looked at each other, the moment lost.

"Setsuna is likely truthful. Prince John will be looking for me." She kept holding Ruka's hands in hers.

"You should go. I'd truly hate for you to find trouble on my behalf." She put her hand on the small of Michiru's back, gently leading her back toward the horses, trying to keep her body as close to Michiru's as possible, for as long as possible.

Michiru turned around, before she mounted her horse. "Promise me you will come for me. I will wait for you, but you must promise me."

Ruka played with a tendril of Michiru's curled hair. "Of course. Always." She kissed Michiru's hand. "You are my Lady, and I your knight."

"Until that day, Ruka Hood. May it come swiftly." Mako led her and Setsuna on into the darkness, and Haruka did not look away until the last of the torchlight had faded down the path.

Michiru walked into the great hall, where Prince John sat on his throne, eyeing her from across the great stone building. She gave a small, polite curtsey. "Yes, your Majesty, what is your will?"

Prince John pushed himself off the throne, drinking deeply from a goblet of wine. HE walked over next to her and set down the wine on the wide wooden table, and examined her. "You are too long a Maid, Maid Michiru."

"I do have the everlasting hope that one day, a noble soul will come, with the key to my heart." She spoke noncommittally, as if such a thing were as likely as her being made queen of all England. She smiled her cold, perfect smile as he stroked his beard, so self-satisfied in the way all men are whenever they ready to tell a woman her own business.

He spoke loudly and grandly."It is good not to despair, as your dear uncle, the King-"

Maid Michiru interrupted him, her voice crisp and corrective. "Is King Richard so returned from the Crusades, then?"

"Your dear uncle, the Prince REGENT of this kingdom" He spoke through gritted teeth. "Has deigned to help you. You will wed, my dear. I know you women, with your...frivolity sometimes find it difficult to choose for yourselves. I have found you an excellent match. He will run your lands well."

Michiru took a deep breath, horrified by the news. She could feel the pity of Setsuna's eyes on her, but neither she nor her handmaiden gave away her position. "May I ask whom?" 

"The Sheriff of Nottingham." Prince John took another swig of the wine, the red of it like blood running down the side of his beard, a sight most desperately wished by Michiru as her eyes narrowed.

She spoke curtly, her body firm. "I'm afraid I must decline his Majesty's kind offer. He is beneath my birth, and I find him despicable besides."

He slammed down the goblet, the wine spilling onto the table. Ruka Hood. Maid Michiru. That twisted nun who refused to support his reign. He had had enough of women defying him, on this day. He grabbed Maid Michiru by the shoulders and slammed her body against the stone wall. "YOU WILL DO AS YOU ARE TOLD!"

But Michiru was unruffled. Men did not frighten her. The worst they could ever do was kill her, they could never have her, not really, not like they wanted. They could possess her, they could beat her, but they could never have her love, her devotion, and they all wanted it. There was not even a trace of worry or fear upon her face as he held her arms. She looked deep into his eyes."Ruka Hood will come for me." And they flickered, then. Fear. She smiled, delighted with the effect.

He let go of her arms, and slapped her harshly, but she did not cry out, did not move, not even registering the pain or shock on her face. "You are too bold, Maid Michiru." He walked back to his throne and melted into it like a lump of hot fat into bread. "I hope your new husband shall bring you to heel. I have been too generous."

"Yes, your _Royal Highness._ Setsuna, we must away. I must prepare for my rescue, or my wedding, we shall see who triumphs." Nose in the air, she walked quickly back toward the exit to the hall, Setsuna following close behind.

Prince John called after her. "Oh, Maid Michiru? And if Ruka Hood does come. I won't make the mistake of setting on ceremony. I'll simply run her through."

The only response Michiru gave was the click of her slippers on stone.

"Ruka, she's meant to get married. They announced it in the square. There's to be a grand feast for all the nobles." Mina had presented her with a few sweet biscuits before she had delivered the news, which should have braced her, and yet she still looked crestfallen, her hands around the handle of the axe she was using to split wood for the camp.

"To who then?" She split another log straight through as Mina settled on a stump.

"The Sheriff."

She set up another log. "Of Nottingham?"

"No, of Paris, France, Ruka, of course of Nottingham!"

She split the log through and buried the axe in the stump, struggling to pull it out. "He's no more noble than I am."

Mina shrugged. "She's noble enough for the both of them, I suppose they figure. With land and title and all of that. It's supposed to happen on the morr-"

Ruka threw down the axe and turned, shoulders slumped, toward the river. She plodded off alone, into the darkness, and sat down on the rock by the river, face buried in her hands. She would marry another. After all the words of love they had said to each other. Ruka had never meant anything, she had been a game for her to play before marrying someone who at least had associations with the court. Ruka could have been Sheriff, she could have been a lot of things, it wasn't her fault she spent so long scrounging just for a meal. But still, how could she have expected such a beautiful and talented and high-born woman to pledge herself to Ruka? But only a week after she had come to the camp, it still came as a painful wound.

Mina came up behind her in the darkness. "Ruka?"

"I was a fool to think she could ever love me." Her eyes stayed downcast, her voice full of a quiet, strong sorrow.

Mina rolled her eyes, hands on her hips, and groaned. "Ruka, you are the closest thing I have to family in this great wide world. But you are the stupidest creature in creation, I swear, I've met garden snakes with more political sense than you."

Ruka removed the small dagger from her belt and handed it over to Mina. "Make this quicker, aim for my heart."

Mina rolled her eyes. "If I ended your life right now, it'd be to end my pain, not yours." She buried the dagger into the dirt, stabbing it deep into the loam. "This is nothing to do with love."

"Why would you marry other than to love?"

Mina gazed upwards. "Truly, God above, save me from Ruka Hood." She looked back over to Ruka. "Nobles marry for anything other than love, Ruka. They marry for power and for allegiance and for wealth. And noble women? They usually marry because they're told to. Maid Michiru has been ordered to marry the Sheriff, I am sure of it. I'd wager every honeyed fig you've ever eaten that Michiru did not have so much as a choice of the gown she was to wear." She continued, gesturingly wildly, the volume of her voice rising like the tides. " And you _are _a fool, but not because you believed she loved you, but because now you believe she doesn't, and because you are willing to die for her, not only that, but willing to get all of us killed for her. And it is foolish and it is stupid." She paused and sat down next to Ruka on the rock, backs touching. After a moment, she spoke, quietly. "And it is the only miracle I have ever known. I do not understand that fire that burns in you, but I envy it."

"What about Sister Rei?" Ruka grinned, in spite of herself.

"Oh, the only fire that burns in her is the fire of the Lord, though I assure you the fire I'd light inside of her would be all the more warming."

She shook her head, and looked out over the river again. "There's no fire anymore. She deserves a noble life." She sighed heavily. "No, even if she did love me, she's worth more. What am I to do, run to the palace, sweep her off her feet, ask her to be Lady of Sherwood? To have dominion over my sheepskins and a pot of half-cooked stew? To be able to bring her only violets when she deserves pearls?"

Mina spun from her place on the rock and gripped Ruka firmly by the shoulders. "Listen now to me, you hopeless, useless, tribade. I am a thief, Ruka. I am a thief and a confidence woman and that is all that I was ever born to be. But you." She turned to Ruka. "You are a noble with no lands, the true and real idea of what a noble was ever meant to be. Maid Michiru couldn't hope for a better love than yours. In a palace or in a wood."

Ruka looked up at Mina hopefully. "Do you think we can save her?"

"Are you mad? This is the greatest theft I'll ever pull off, we'll steal a noble in broad daylight." She playfully roughed up Ruka's hair. "Let's go get your girl."

Ruka jumped up from the rock and picked Mina up, hugging her tightly.

Mina struggled. "Oh, do stop it, you big sissy, before I change my mind."


	5. A Fine and Festive Wedding

The gown was beautiful, a soft lilac trimmed with golden embroidery, and on any other day, she might have appreciated it. Setsuna dressed her delicately, trying to be reassuring. Setsuna had seen this before, had seen plenty of girls' young loves fall to the weight of duty and power, the light in their eyes grow blurred like an aging paste gem. She hoped the Sheriff would let her come with Michiru. Men rarely did, when they married her girls, assuring her they had their own handmaidens for her. The Sheriff would not be so rich or so canny as to think he should provide a handmaiden who was loyal to him and not her lady. Or that was Setsuna's hope.

Michiru did not accept this paltry hope as the best answer. She had seen so much in her young life. Watched her family die and be buried. Watched herself get shoved to the side as servants died and people panicked. Watched herself taken for a servant's child, no matter how she protested. And then, orphan home. It had seemed a prison, but had become her salvation.

And she refused to give up that salvation, even now as she was dressed in fine clothes and jewels, prepared like a suckling pig to be devoured by the Sheriff. Ruka Hood would come. All would be well.

The Sheriff came bursting through the door, and behind his back."My Lady! My wife!"

Michiru ignored him as Setsuna continued to braid her hair. "We are not yet married, good Sheriff."

"Ah yes, and yet," He smiled. "I already have a gift for you. A wedding present."

She looked up at him, not sure what to think. "Oh?"

He bent down next her ear. "I have Little Mina in my dungeon as we speak." He drew the sword out from behind his back and laid in on her lap. It was undoubtedly Mina's. "I will slit her throat for you as we say I do."

Her face did not change, no sign of distress or worry. "Ah, but Prince John has given me this wonderful gown. It would be an insult of the highest order to sully it with blood."

The Sheriff stood up. "All the more reason for him to see you in it at the banquet this afternoon. I hope you will join us momentarily."

She continued to look straight ahead. "Of course."

He left her quarters to join the banquet, Michiru sighing heavily and scowling.

The dungeon was dank and dirty, only one small window out to the world. But even here, the merry music of the banquet filtered up, and the smells of the food and the sounds of drunken revelry were a temptation too dearly to be missed. The guard sighed heavily, kept from the banquet to watch a tiny blonde, who was unarmed besides. It hardly seemed fitting, if the bars of this kingdom could keep a woman confined, what was the use of the kingdom at all.

He contemplated all this when he heard a small sob from behind the bars. The outlaw Little Mina had her face buried in her hands, shoulders heaving.

"Oh...miss..." He drew near to the bars, suddenly realizing how small and helpless she was.

"I am not a bad girl, sir." She heaved into another sob. "Really, I'm not." She looked up at him. "Do you believe me?"

"Well, miss, we all, you know, do bad things."

She nodded sadly. "You know, when you are so all alone in the world, so young, you'll do anything to belong, to have someone. I wasn't hardly toddling when my parents died." She paused and gently traced her hand across the bars, frowning. "There was no such luck for me. I was doomed to survive. In the cold light of that cruel stone—it's no place for a little girl, you know—I clung to the only person who cared for me. It's taken me down a dark path. Found me in unsavory places." She pressed her face to the bars and looked intensely into the guard's eyes. "But I need someone. We delicate creatures, we do. I just..." the guard drew himself closer to the bars, almost touching her face. "I have a need, raw and burning."

He leaned in to kiss her, and she grabbed him by the shirt and slammed his head against the bars. He collapsed at her feet, and she untied the keys from his belt. "God, you men are all the same, you all think we're just wandering around, waiting for you to stick it in." She unlocked the cell and dragged him inside it, locking him in and taking his sword. "I'm coming, Ruka!"

She hurried down the back stair, toward the kitchen, and that entrance into the palace she'd found, all those years ago.

"To our Sheriff, Bradly of Nottingham. On this day, your contribution to our illustrious kingdom is duly noted." He raised the goblet of wine. "To our Sheriff, on this his wedding day!"

The nobles all raised their goblets, and drank along with, laughing and cheering. The table was laden with a feast to feed hundreds, despite there being less than a hundred nobles in attendance. Whole pig, golden chickens, pie stuffed with pheasant and aromatics, an entire plate of sweets piled high. The wine flowed freely, Prince John celebrating not only the marriage of his niece, but the capture of a dangerous outlaw, two women who had done nothing but challenge him finally brought to heel.

Prince John stood up again, raising his goblet. "And to the Sheriff once more, for his heroic capture of the outlaw Little Mi-"

There was a sudden clamor, as the chandelier above shook, a rope coming down from the ceiling and a blur streaking across the hall, a heavy thud as it landed on the table in front of them. A noblewoman gasped as the leg of the childen in front of her was wrenched from it's socket.

Mina stood on the table, chewing on the chicken leg. "Ho there, m'lords and ladies! I am the captured outlaw Little Mina. Greetings!" She took another bite and swallowed. "So glad you invited me, Prince John, food's fantastic. You may notice that I am somewhat less captured than you might imagine. Well, that's because, and this is important," Prince John looked around and suddenly realized that at least half his guard had disappeared, and the Merry Maids were stationed at every exit from the hall. "The security around here is TERRIBLE. Sheriff, did you really think you could capture me that easily? I haven't been caught stealing an apple since I were five. No, no, I just needed to get inside the castle. I knew you would be far too proud of such a capture to do the smart thing and just kill me, and now, here we all are." She finished the chicken leg and tossed the bone on the table, taking a drink of a noble's wine goblet. "Because, I, Little Mina, am the greatest strategist of all time, and furthermore-"There was an arrow at her foot, plunged deep into the wood.

She looked up the staircase, where Ruka stood, scowling. "Mina, you were meant to introduce me!"

She put her hands on her hips. "Oh everyone knows who you are, everybody, this is Ruka Hood, she put on a clean shirt today and I hope you're all very impressed. Here." She tossed a small tea cake across the room, and Ruka caught it, thought to be offended a moment, but then simply shoved it in her mouth.

Prince John seethed from his chair. "I assume this where you make some gallant speech about claiming what is yours."

Ruka straighted her archer's cap. "No, Prince John, this is where I make a noble speech about claiming whatever it is the Lady wants. But I am more or less certain it isn't to be married to some gravy-soaked buffoon"

The Sheriff pounded his fist against the table and stood up, offended. "I am not gravy-soaked."

Mina took a large ladleful of gravy and poured it over his head. "All ready for serving."

There was a sudden explosion of activity as the Sheriff lunged toward Mina, but he was no match for her swiftness with a blade, and she picked up a slice of pork, shoving it into her mouth with one hand as she parried with the other. "Yes, yes, good, good, okay, thrust!" He, to his great irritation, did exactly as she had planned almost to the second. Mina turned around quickly. "We've got this, Ruka, go get your woman so we can get out of here!"

Ruka rushed off, and the Sheriff leapt off the table following her in hot pursuit. The Sheriff ran up the stairs as fast as his body would carry him, and came to the door behind which his future life lay.

Setsuna stood in front of the door, staff in hand, eyes blazing with the light of the torches. "No."

"Servant, let me pass!"The Sheriff held his sword up, unafraid to strike.

Setsuna was tired. She was tired of every child she had ever loved being taken from her. She was tired of men telling her where she would go, and who with, and never having any say. She was tired of watching girls be married off into unhappiness, tired of saying tearful goodbyes. She was tired of the memory of her one love, and how she had simply accepted that it could never be, how she had pined unto her Queen's death. She was simply tired.

She banged the staff against the stone floor, and the Sheriff jumped a bit. "I swore to protect my lady Michiru, and I shall keep that unto death."

He looked surprised, taken aback for a moment by the tall, dark woman. "Are you going to fight me?"

"If I must, yes." She swung at him with her staff, nearly hitting him in the face, and he jumped back, and then lunged at her, eyes wild with rage.

Michiru did not say a word when Ruka entered her quarters, there was not even a terrible amount of surprise on her face, she simply crossed the room in a swift glide and pressed her lips to Ruka's, overcome with joy. They kissed intimately, forgetting where they even were, forgetting any danger that might befall them, because now they were finally together.

She pulled away from Michiru, taking Michiru's hand to her breast, eyes serious. "I have come for you. We will escape together, and I have nothing to offer you but my poverty and my love, and my promise that I will care for you, and build you a proper house, and –"

Michiru interrupted, "Darling, this speech is lovely, and you may complete it later, but as to this moment, I think we should be on our way."

They ran to the door, but were interrupted by a clatter from the door, the sound of Setsuna calling out and then a crash. The Sheriff came through the door, sword drawn, cape drawn behind him, facing the two lovers with a sneer on his cruel face.

"Planning to dash off with the dear lady?" He walked forward toward them, pointing the blade.

Ruka jutted out her chin proudly. "Thought I'd have some unfinished business, but you were kind enough to show up right here." He picked up the discarded sword from the guard who had left it in her quarters, drunk on wine and sweets. She set down her quiver and bow. "I will protect my lady."

The Sheriff laughed. "That's what that silly bint out in front said, but I showed her who was the man."

Michiru turned toward the door. "Setsuna!"

The Sheriff turned his blade to her. "Ah ah ah, Maid Michiru...though you won't be a Maid after tonight. You stay until this is finished." He turned back to Ruka. "And now, I'll show you who is the man. You could never be, you haven't the courage enough."

Michiru angrily interjected. "She's not callous enough!"

Haruka shrugged. "I'm not stupid enough."

Michiru looked over at Ruka. "You're not smelly enough."

"And I'm certainly not prideful e-"

"ENOUGH!" The Sheriff shook with rage, lunging at Ruka, who barely managed to block the blow.

She swung back, but it was too high, and he nearly gutted her in response. She reeled backward, falling into a bookcase, but blocked his blade at her forehead, pushing him off as he tripped over the footrest. Ruka stabbed toward the ground, but he was not unskilled with a sword, and rolled quickly, jumping to his feet and turning to face Ruka, smiling.

They danced around each other for moment, Michiru standing in the corner, wringing her hands. She could not step in. Ruka had a high sense of honor, and it would offend her deeply to have someone, even her, take away the pure skill-matching of a duel. The ineffectual nature of her own existence was beginning to wear on her, she could tell you that much, and as soon as all of this was over, she intended never to be held in thrall by anything other than her own feelings ever again.

Ruka and the Sheriff started their deadly dance again, feet shuffling across the stone floor, pushed out onto the small balcony to the courtyard in Michiru's quarters. As the fight went on, they could hear the fight below—Mina's Merry Maids had pushed the guards into the courtyard as well, Sister Rei quietly loading food and gold into their small wagon, with two of the Prince's finest horses at the lead. The cheers of her girls emboldened Ruka, and she smiled, the Sheriff against the stone bannister. She took a broad swing, his eyes growing wide as the blade drew close to his neck.

Our lives are made up of a series of moments, no longer than a few seconds. If these few seconds changes, entire lives are raised or razed, and the aftermath of just a few precious seconds can resonate forever, on into history, all driven by a few seconds, a few centimeters, a few breaths.

And it was in these few seconds that Ruka Hood missed.

The Sheriff whirled away from the stone, and Ruka, having put all of her energy into the swing, was caught off balance. For Michiru, those next few seconds were an eternity she would relive for all the rest of her days, running toward the balcony, never fast enough, as the Sheriff grinned, and gave Ruka just the slightest push, her back bending over the balcony wall, sword dropping from her hands, a look of surprise on her face as she flipped over the edge. Michiru got to the door just as the last bit of her boot disappeared behind the stone.

She hit the ground with a dull thud, and did not stir, laying still and quiet in the dust. Michiru looked over the balcony down at the love she had waited for year to hold in arms, nights of dreaming and hoping, stolen from her again, laying once more in the dirt. Only this time, there was no reassuring cry of pain.

Her voice broke against her will. "Oh no."

Mina, fighting back two soldiers on the ground, turned at the sound of the thud, her eyes focusing immediately on the crumpled mass that had been her friend. "Ruka!" Any momentary sadness she might have felt was converted to a burning and immediate anger. Prince John had taken her home, food from her mouth, kept her on the run the whole of her life, and now had taken her closest family. She growled. "Oh, we're winning this one." She ran to the top of the hangman's stage, and called out in her loud, clear voice. "Maids!" All of them turned to look at her, moving toward as the soldiers regrouped. "Mako, up the back stair, Rei, come with me, Hotaru, you know what to do." She stood up at her full height, and yelled at the top of her lungs, making sure ever soldier, every nobleman, even Prince John himself tucked away back in the hall could hear her. "If we die today, we die as legends!"

Michiru's picked up Ruka's sword and withdrew inside the tower. She sat on the bed, her eyes cold, her mouth in a straight line.

The Sheriff laughed and spit off the edge of the balcony. He strolled inside confidently. "Now that we've removed that distraction, you've no choice but to marry me. There goes all you had to fight for."

She stood, the sword clutched tightly in her hands. "That, sir, is where you are mistaken."

"You'd rather kill yourself than be with me?" He shook his head.

She leapt forward, and he barely had a chance to block the blow, her face no longer serene but dark with anger, blade pressed against blade, their faces almost touching. "Whoever said anything about killing myself?"

They broke apart, and the Sheriff could barely keep ahead of each stroke of her sword, so fast and furious she was, and his aim quickly became less 'try not to hurt her' and more 'try to survive her'. He began to panic, growing tired and alarmed at the skill of her weapon. This was not something he was accustomed to ladies knowing. She stumbled, suddenly, and he took his chance and pinned her to the bed, laying on top of her.

"Have you gone mad?" The surprise and tinge of fear in his voice was unmistakeable. He held down her arm, and threw away Ruka's sword. She did not struggle, but was perfectly still.

She whispered into his ear coyly. "You were wrong, you know."

"How's that?"

She stroked his cheek with her free hand, and he let the other go as she smiled and relaxed beneath him. "You didn't remove my treasure worth fighting for." And, as he smiled triumphantly, the cold steel of the dagger strapped to her thigh entered his back. "You simply left me with nothing to lose."

He slid off the bed, coughing up blood onto the skirt of her dress, and she shoved him to the floor, twirling the small dagger in her hand. "I am not some helpless girl any man can claim."

"Ruka, if you can at all, you must answer me." Hotaru's brow was heavily furrowed with worry as she knelt next to Ruka's prone form, the only movement separating life from death the shallow movement of her chest. She did not respond to Hotaru's words, and she swallowed hard as she heard Mina come up from behind her.

"We won, it seems." Mina was carrying an intricately decorated and skillfully made noble's sword, obviously a new acquisition from the spoils of battle. "But we need to move before the Sheriff gets his guard together again."

"The Sheriff will be no cause for concern. Ever." They turned as Michiru bent down next to Ruka, both Hotaru and Mina noting the blood staining her dress. Sestuna stood above her, pressing a cool cloth to the bump on her head.

Mina's eyebrow arched, impressed. "In any case," she whistled to the other girls. "We need to help her into the wagon."

They gently lifted Ruka into the back of the wagon, as swiftly as her groans and twitches would let them, Prince John's angry voice echoing from inside the hall. Rei quickly moved to the front of the wagon, grabbed the reins, and they rode off into the evening.

Stopped at a wayside they had used many times before, Hotaru examined Ruka more closely, a deep frown on her face. She attempted to be gentle, kindly asking Michiru to move to one side, her mind searching desperately for anything she had heard of, anything she coulkd think of, but only praying for a miracle came to mind, and she was more or less certain that Mina would not approve of that as a course of treatment.

She jumped off the back of the wagon and nodded at the girls. "We need to get her back to the camp. We must try to keep her warm and dry," She indicated to the clouds hanging overhead with her chin. "I see there's a storm coming, and it may be a heavy one."

Indeed, the clouds were low and grey and pendulous, the smell of the coming flood heavy on the air, the wind beginning to pick up. The Maids nodded, beginning preparations to head back to the only home they'd ever known, Mako purchasing a few chickens from a farmer for the broth she intended to make. Ruka would be hungry as soon as she awoke, she reasoned.

"Hotaru." She grabbed the small girl's arm and looked into her eyes, stone-faced. "I need the ungilded truth."

Hotaru looked at her, and a haze of sorrow came over her face. She looked away from Mina. "We should concentrate on making her passage a gentle one. I don't believe she'll last the night."

Mina nodded, and pulled away from Hotaru. She picked up her sword and swung at the low branch on the tree, cracking it and knocking it to the ground. "THAT GODDAMN IDIOT DAUGHTER OF A WHORE." She pressed her forehead to the tree. "GOD IN HEAVEN!"

She pulled away from the tree, reaching for a plan. "If we get back to camp, we'll build a fire near the lean-to, we'll double or triple up on the sheepskin, try to get her to eat something...damn my life, that storm is going to kill any fire I so much as try to start. Maybe if we all stay near her, we'll be able to keep—BUT PRINCE JOHN! Ugh, there's no way he's not going to toss the entire forest after today, think, Mina, think!"

There was a tap on her shoulder, and she turned to see Michiru standing behind her. "I know a place where we might go. It is well-fortified, and warm, and can bed all of us."

"If you're suggesting we all kill ourselves and go to heaven, I have a few objections."

Michiru snarled. "Don't be snide with me when I am trying to help save her. I love her just as well as you-"

"Oh you DO NOT." Mina laughed darkly. "Just because you two have been pining away like a couple of unpaired lovebirds means fuck all to me. She's been the only family I've had the whole of my life. If she dies, you go back to your fancy dinners and fine dresses. I, on the other, have nothing to go back to but a camp that's going to get burned to the ground tonight!"

Michiru was quiet for a moment. "If you truly believed I did not love her, you would not have helped her. I know you do not approve of me, you never have. Even when we were children. But do not be false with me. You know how I love her. And no, I am not you, and the small and intimate details of her life: How she sleeps, her favorite stews, the way she dances when she's had a little too much in the tavern—have been stolen from me. But do not think, Little Mina of Sherwood Forest, that I was any less a prisoner to the circumstances of my life than you. So if you would kindly get off of the cross and help me save this girl we both love, I would appreciate it."

Mina's mouth was in a hard line, then she relaxed and flipped the sword over her shoulder into the scabbard drawn across her back. "Fair enough." She shrugged. "So where's this magic sanctuary, then?"

The torches lit up the stone walls of the great building, laid in the middle of a fine and lush field. The girls stood in front of the great oak doors, towering high above them and festooned with great iron knockers, mighty lions with shocked serpents held in their teeth. The rain began to fall as they stood there, and Mina threw her cloak over Ruka as Michiru dismounted from the wagon.

She lifted her skirts as she padded toward the doors, the look on her face the same as the night she had come to Mother Mary's: Unaffected, strong, sure. She lifted the heavy knocker and let it go, a great thump resounding through the halls of the old structure. There was a call from inside the home, and Setsuna moved to stand alongside her, ready to defend and fall yet again.

The door opened, and Michiru stepped forward. "I am the Lady Michiru, of Fitzwalter Hall. This is my birthright, and I have come to claim it."

The man stood straight, and pulled his jerkin down firm. "How am I to know you are the Lady?"

Michiru stepped forward again, almost on top of him. "I was already denied my birthright by servants once in my life, and I assure you I will not be so kind if it happens a second time. However, you will find I am not an unreasonable mistress." She presented her hand, the seal of Fitzwalter presented there in gold.

The servant's eyes grew wide, and he stammered, bowing. "Uh, yes, my Lady Michiru, but um, I , well, are you now here with your loving husband?" He looked out at the group of girls, who were quickly becoming rain-soaked. "I am to...assume?"

Michiru walked right past him and cast her cape into his arms. "I intend to take over management of my holdings myself, servant. Is there a name I might call you, or would you prefer to be referred to by your station?" She looked at him, no question in her eyes, a simple blank assurance that she was the leader and was only asking his name a sign of her benevolence.

"Walter, m'lady."

"Very well, Walter, see that these girls are given warm beds and hot food." She face softened. "There is a girl in the wagon who is hurt quite badly. See that she is taken to my private quarters, which I assume are in constant readiness for your lady."

"Yes, of course, m'lady."

The bed was high with goose down as they lay Ruka down for rest, covered in pillows and with thick velvet curtains drawn around dark mahogany posts. Michiru drew soft, warm blankets around her as Setsuna stoked the fireplace, trying to warm the room as quickly as possible. Ruka did not respond to the ministrations other than a soft groan, her eyes barely opened, laying completely still other than the shaky rise and fall of her chest.

They undressed her gingerly, trying not to cause any more damage than had already been done. As they removed her tunic, the kerchief, adorned with embroidered birds, fell away from its place next to her heart. Michiru, sitting on the bed next to her, picked up the kerchief and held it to her cheek, the smell of Ruka the sweetest perfume she'd known. It was so unfair, Michiru thought, that the first night she got to see all of Ruka's lean, sinewy body, the one she had imagined a few too many times in the tub from the first time she saw her wanted poster, that first night was possibly the last. It should have been full of the trembling and excited touches of lovers, and yet she found herself among Ruka's women of the forest, acting more as a nursemaid than anything, trying to hold Ruka to the earth, begging her not to leave, not again, not after all these years and all these hopes.

Hotaru gently bandaged her wounds as capably as she was able, and sighed, biting her lip. "I, I don't—I'm sorry, I just..."

Mina laid her hand on Hotaru's shoulder. "You did the best you can. It's up to our shit for brains leader now. Go get yourself something to eat."

Hotaru nodded quietly and left. The tension hung in the air for a moment, the silence like a knife after all the commotion of care. Only Sister Rei and Little Mina remained in the room with them, Mina staring out the window at the night as if she were studying the most interesting painting she had ever seen, not acknowledging the girl on the bed, or the nun's soft Latin prayers.

God and the church were for people who needed to believe there was a reason for everything, Michiru had often thought, and they needed that reason to be something other than, 'The world is cruel', but watching Sister Rei gently administer the last rites to Ruka, she felt somewhat more charitable toward a servant of the cloth. It seemed less a ritual for desperation of the damned in her hands, more a gentle benediction to comfort a dying friend. No. Not dying. She couldn't accept that, not even as the last of Ruka's consciousness faded, not even as her friends looked grimly on, not even as Setsuna spoke to her in the soft voice of her childhood, the one that comforted her from nightmares or pain. The world was cruel, yes, but this was sadistic. It was impossible. Could she never have one thing, that was rightly hers, that some man could not take away?

Rei quietly finished. "May God ease your pain and forgive your sins, Ruka." She nodded to Michiru. "I shall be in the chapel, if you need." She turned and left, not waiting for a response, her hand alighting on Mina's shoulder for a moment before she breezed out of the room.

Mina turned away from the window, still silent as she looked over Ruka, lying on the bed cradled in Michiru's arms, still silent as the grave, eyes closed, a look on her face that Mina remembered from so many losses back at the home, that quiet resignation of those who are bound heavenward.

Mina smacked a hand against the bedpost. "You always said you were gonna sleep in a bed like this one." She turned to leave, and then turned back around, a mix of hurt and anger in her face. "Why, praytell, wouldn't you SHOOT HIM WITH A FUCKING ARROW? You are a SHIT swordfighter, you always have been, why..." Her shoulders slumped, and she shook her head. She looked back at Michiru. "She saved you. Return the favor."

"I am trying, Mina." Michiru glanced around the room. She and Mina were alone. Her voice was soft, and less controlled than either Mina or Michiru had imagined it could be. "If she dies, please believe that every good thing in me dies with her."

Mina looked back toward the door, somewhere between defeat and hope."It's not your—at least, if she dies here, she dies safe and warm, which is more than I could give her. And she," Her eyes glistened with tears. "She loves you, Maid Michiru. She's not stopped loving you all these years. She's not always this foolhardy, or she'd already be dead. She's always after me about being careful. But you're the treasure she'll always go after. So I'm glad she's with you." She took a deep breath, set her head straight forward, and nodded. "M'lady."

"There are no titles required between us, Mina."

Mina nodded and left, shutting the door behind her.

Sister Rei sat down next to Mina, who was perched quietly on a stone bench near the chapel of the Hall, Ruka's hat in her hands. "I know she's dear to you. I'm sorry."

Mina turned the hat over, her fingers slowly drifting along the long pheasant's feather tucked in the band. "It's my fault for wishing to be leader." She remembered the day Ruka had taken that pheasant, the two of them sitting in a tree, talking about the girl Ruka had met at the tavern the other night, Ruka blushing heavily, but still trying to pretend she hadn't been flustered when the pretty girl had asked her to dance. She half-thought Ruka had shot the pheasant to distract her, until she'd seen her proudly stick that feather in her hat. "All I ever wanted was for people to know me, and not her..." Her voice broke, and she choked back tears. "I just wanted people to know that I was good, and I was stealthy, and I was clever. I prayed for it every night. And now I have my wish. I won't be in the shadow of Ruka Hood anymore, for she won't be there to cast it."

Rei looked at her with a mix of pity and disbelief. "Do you think God is like some djinn from the Moorish stories, looking to trick you?"

The sorrow left Mina's voice, forgotten in her impertinent snipe back at Rei. "No, I think God is a small boy pulling the wings off grasshoppers."

Rei sighed, annoyed, and crossed her arms over her chest. "Mina, to believe that God is targeting you personally is the height of arrogance."

"I said nothing about it being personal, REI! But I don't have to bow and sweep to some Lord of the trash heap we call life." She looked, for a moment, as if she might fight Rei, right there, beat her for every sin God had committed against her. For the parents she'd lost. For the starvation she'd suffered. For the times she'd been caned. For the times Ruka'd been caned for her. For the happiness they were all so close to attaining, stolen. And Rei even looked like she might be obliging, the angel ready to wrestle with Jacob.

But Mina sighed, and stood up, and laid the hat on her head, pulling it down over her brow. She tipped up her head, tipping her tears back into her eyes, and made her mouth into a hard line. She gave a sniff, brushed her nose on her sleeve, and picked Ruka's bow up from next to the bench, drawing the quiver across her back.

Rei rose to her feet. "Where will you go?"

"I will stay here as long as there's life in her. But I have to practice." She began to walk toward the courtyard. "The world needs a Ruka Hood." She turned and looked over her shoulder at Rei. "The name, you see, is what's important. It's a name people remember."

"Mina." Rei's voice was clear of its usual criticism and harshness, and she extended a hand out to Mina, but Mina simply turned around, head hung, and walked out to the courtyard.

Michiru held Ruka against her, softly murmuring any words of comfort she knew into her ear. Setsuna had told her once, as a girl, that man had invented poetry and prayer, so that they would have something to say when words failed to come. And indeed, those were the only words she had now, sharing every verse she had ever read with Ruka as she lay struggling in a bed fit for the lover of a lady, the rescuing rogue she had waited ten years for. Ten years, and it could all fade away in one night.

Finally, there was only one prayer left on her lips. "Don't die, my love. Don't die. Don't die. Don't die."

She was still repeating it when the wind slipped through the glass, extinguishing the candle at her side


	6. The End of a Legend

The sun cracked over the earth like an egg, golden beams spilling into each crack and illuminating the dark. It spread over Michiru like a carpet of flowers, the soft pinks of the sky painting the room. The rising tide of sunlight reached her eyelids, and she blinked, gazing about the room for a moment. Slowly, the mist cleared from her mind, the memory of she had gotten to this place reavealing itself in her mind.

She sat up straight, panicked.

She spilled over the other the other side of the bed, her hand outstretched, readying herself for the cool of Ruka's body, cursing herself for her weakness, that she let the sweet drunkenness of sleep fall over her. She had left Ruka alone. Left her to finish life as she had begun it, as she had lived so much of it, longing for a comforting touch. A tear escaped for her eye defiantly as she put a hand to Ruka's cheek.

But still she breathed. Her cheek was warm. Under what power, Michiru did not know, but she had never been the recipient of a miracle, and did not feel as if she should question the logic. She gently smoothed Ruka's hair, whispering thanks to gods both old and new.

She struggled to lay the bigger girl in her arms again, and Ruka groaned as she moved her, her eyebrow twitching in pain.

Michiru kissed her softly, apologizing, asking Ruka to open her eyes, to speak to her. But there was only silence in return, and, Michiru thought, maybe a small twitch of her eyelid, smaller than the heartbeat of a fairy, but there. She lived.

She did not know whether to thank God, or to thank the warmth of Fitzwalter Hall, or to thank Ruka's own stubborn soul and willful body. And so she thanked them all, a silent prayer at each rise of Ruka's chest, and she continued to whisper her words of love and admiration. As Ruka dreamed.

"I suppose I should thank you." Mina smirked over at Rei, who was cleaning out the broth bowl, her hands moving deftly inside the wooden dish. Only a little of the broth had found its way down Ruka's throat, but that was enough to be thankful. Rei did not respond, and so Mina clarified. "For praying for Ruka, and all."

Rei looked up at her. "Difficult words for someone who has spent so long at odds with the church."

"I wasn't thanking the church."

"I wasn't praying for Ruka."

They looked at each other, then, a moment caught between them like a firefly in a child's hands, barely contained, light shimmering out from the cracks.

Rei looked away first. "Of course, I prayed for her soul, that she find peace, and relief, whatever way that comes. But…you seemed the more in need. From a strictly spiritual standpoint, of course."

"Of course" Mina touched her hand. "You have always been particularly interested in my spiritual well-being."

Rei drew her hand away. "I took a vow, Mina, and some of us take such things in seriousness."

Mina turned to go. "Miracles abound, then. That your seriousness could be so clear, and yet your hand always find a way to brush mine."

Rei turned around and continued cleaning, as Mina left the large stone room. She sighed heavily, and looked up at the ceiling, looking for a verse to comfort her and somehow only remembering the Song of Solomon.

Michiru stayed by her, gently feeding her broth, ensuring she didn't choke on it, half-aware as she was. Setsuna and the others all offered to help, but no, she had been cheated of years of loving and caring for Ruka, and she intended to drink any drop of her that God would allow. She spent her sleeping and waking hours, Ruka in her arms.

Mina had commented often, while sitting in the window of Michiru's quarters, checking in on her friend, cheered to see her stay this side of Paradise, that the truest miracle any of them had observed was that Prince John had never thought to find his way to Fitzwalter Hall. It seemed simple enough, to Mina, that this would be the next place after the forest to come and sack, to kill Ruka for good and most of the Merry Maids besides.

But Mina had heard there was scuttlebutt in the kingdom. She could not divine what it was—she was too fearful for Ruka's tenuous grip on life to go too far from the hall, which hampered her gathering of knowledge, only getting small snippets of information here or there. But the undercurrent of change in the air was impossible for her not to feel, and she did not know whether she should be grateful or cautious. The lack of certainty unnerved her as a dog before an electrical storm.

Michiru thought Ruka's survival was the miracle, and Mina the saftey of the hall, but in truth, they were both wrong—humans often are, when confronted with the miraculous. The true miracle was the trust that grew like a line of ivy between the twin walls of Maid Michiru and Little Mina, as they both watched over the piece of their hearts that lay in the bed. They were not so different, both masters of the word and their respective worlds, clever and witty. Michiru was not so filled with the snobbery of her kind as Mina feared, and she did seem to love Ruka even when it called for lowly tasks. For her part, Michiru found Mina to be kinder than she had thought, more thoughtful than the brash girl she'd pictured, and she, too, seemed to love Ruka for more than her value as an ally. Slowly, but assuredly, it grew.

And then, the awaited gift. One fall afternoon, Ruka's eyes blinked open, a flicker of recognition in them that had lacked, and she softly asked for some water.

The chapel was small but richly outfitted, though that had done nothing to save the family that had occupied the hall before. Rei sat, praying her daily recitations in the comfort of the one familiar place in this hall where she felt so far off of her own her learning, off of her own comfort. The longer she was away from her church, the less she felt she understood. Or was it more? Women's lives were all compromise, this she knew to be true, and denial was the only truth she knew anymore. Why did she feel this way? To what point and purpose?

Her prayers were answered, in a way, by the sound of Mina's whistle behind her. "Didn't want to scare you. Ruka's awake. Talking, even."

"She's doing better." Rei allowed herself a smile. "She may yet pull through." She rose from her spot of prayer.

Mina laughed to herself. "Thank God she's too bull-headed to listen to Death himself." She walked toward Rei, who stood still as a statue.

A flick of her eyebrow. "It's unlike you to thank God for much of anything."

Mina stopped a foot in front of her, both too close and too far away. "Always on about that, aren't you? I've had precious little to be thankful for."

"God provides."

"I provided. God let me live. We'll call it a draw." She was proud, carelessly proud, carelessly, wildly, wonderfully proud.

"Little Mina, when will you take an interest in your soul?"

Mina leaned in conspiratorially. "I'm very interested in your soul."

"My soul belongs to God."

Her eyes danced around the chapel. "I remember a story, about a saint, caught up in ecstasy, the ecstasy of God. God blessed her with pleasure."

Rei tried to step back, but found that she could not. "Than I will wait for God to give it to me."

Mina touched Rei's cheek, looking up at her, eyes full of desire and reverence. "God helps those who help themselves.:

The red light of the chapel streamed down on their bodies, the candles flickered, and Mina and Rei rediscovered the pleasures of Heaven and Hell in each other.

Glad you could join us, Lazarus." Mina stood at the door, leaned against the frame, Ruka's cap on her head and a plate of sausages and bread in her hand. She held up the plate. "Hotaru's orders, you're to eat something real now that you're among the living."

"You stole my hat." Ruka slyly smiled, teasing as Michiru smoothed back her hair and kissed her forehead.

Michiru fluffed Haruka's pillow and stood up, nodding at Mina. "If you should need me, I will be in the hall. I could use a little something myself."

Mina grabbed her arm as she went to leave. 'You don't have to leave, Lady."

Michiru smiled gratefully, but shook her head. "It's no trouble at all." She slipped past the door, shutting it behind her.

Mina sat on the edge of the bed. "How do you find yourself, all new-risen from Hades?"

Ruka chuckled. "Like I've just come from Hades, believe it or not." Ruka had struggled to put together the events that had brought her to Michiru's bed, but it all seemed like a blur. She remembered so little. She was in the castle, Mina was giving one of her overlong speeches again. Then kissing Michiru. Then darkness, and terrible pain. Voices around her, garbled like she was trying to hear through water. Small bursts of consciousness pierced the darkness like stars: A line of Latin pleading from Rei, the touch of Mina's small hand on hers, a glimpse of her angel Michiru comforting her in her pain. And then, one day, the veil simply lifted as if by magic, and there she was, in a soft, warm bed with her Lady. She could be forgiven for having thought, for a few moments, that she had died, until a bolt of pain ran through her body and made her feel very live indeed.

"I surely hope you don't feel worse than you look, I'd not wish that on my worst enemy." She smirked.

She scowled, and pulled herself away from the high pile of down pillows. "Listen here, whelp—Ah!" She closed her eyes tight, the lash of her own over-eager heroics cracking across her body.

Mina put her hand at Haruka's shlder, laying her back against the pillows. 'Ruka, Ruka, rest, I didn't mean to rile you. Well, I did, but, anyhow. Lay down."

Ruka lay back and just took a few deep breaths. "It likely would've been smarter to die, but that'd involve leaving you in charge."

Mina took off the hat and lay it on Ruka's lap. "You can be the leader. I don't want it anymore. Price was too high."

Ruka shook her head, and picked up the hat, delicately touching the long feather. "No, I'm afraid my outlaw days are behind me. I'm not fit for it. Even if I get out of this bed, my leg's crippled." She looked up at Mina and tossed the cap at her. "Better keep it."

Mina looked at her, serious. "You will get better."

"I've no doubt of it, but better and fit to run a forest-bound ring of outlaws aren't the same." She gazed toward the window. "I'm bound to Fitzwalter Hall, now."

Mina snorted. "You poor dear, stuck in luxury with your Lady, I'm sure they'll write you in the book of the martyrs."

Ruka grinned brightly. "I will bear my cross with dignity"

"I'm sure you will."

Her recovery was miraculous, but not a miracle in the way the stories tell them. It was the miracle of a seed planted in the ground, slow and steady and fragile in its own way. Her strength grew, she began to eat and talk and laugh with the girls, each setback only strengthening her resolve to take her lady's side.

The winter blew in hard, but the chill was hardly felt at Fitzwalter Hall. The girls could hardly believe their luck—the Prince had not thought to make his way to Fitzwalter, there was plenty of food and beds for all, and Ruka's health improved every day. She took to sitting in the window in Michiru's quarters watching the snow slowly drift down and cover the landscape.

Michiru smiled to see her sit in the window, wrapped up in a warm blanket, the crudely carved cane—Michiru would see to it she got a better one come spring—leaned against her gently crooked leg. The light reflected off the snow and illuminated Ruka, surrounding her miracle in her own halo.

Ruka caught her watching, and turned around, smiling slyly. "What are you doing?"

"Nothing at all." She gracefully glided across the room and put a warm mug of mulled wine in her hand. "Do you feel strong enough to come down to dinner, or should I have it brought up?"

"No, no I'll show myself down." She took the blanket off her shoulders and set the mug down on the wood bench. "I must be sure to remind them I'm still around." She grinned, and slowly struggled to her feet, stretching out her hand when Michiru tried to help. "I'll need to do it on my own."

And so Michiru neatly folded her hands in front of her, watching quietly and trying not to wince as Haruka fought her way to her feet, leaning heavily on her cane and using the wall to steady herself.

"There." Haruka looked up at her. "Nothing to it, you see?" She offered Michiru her elbow. "My lady?"

She sat by the fire with the other girls in a plush, comfortable chair, her leg straightened out in front of her, her body growing tired but her mind unwilling to rest as she listened to the girls laugh and tell her about their adventures here at the hall. Mako found herself in love with the large kitchen and the availability of food, the meals she'd been able to create here for everyone, briefly chiding Ruka for not telling her she planed to come to dinner, she would have planned something better, maybe a sweet, even. Ami waxed nostalgic about the library—Rei had even been teaching her to read, such was her thirst for knowledge, and it seemed to bring Rei happiness too, to give that to her. Setsuna remarked quietly, only heard by Michiru, that she was simply thankful for the gift of so many loving people surrounding her.

Ruka stared into the fire, leaning forward on her cane, listening to the girls, music sweet as any she'd ever heard from any bard. Michiru quietly, slowly, shooed them on to bed, as Ruka's exhaustion grew more obvious, her voice soft and weary, Michiru worrying that she had overextended herself in the pleasures of the evening.

Soon, Mina was the only girl left, she and Ruka sat close in the dying firelit. Rei passed by, a smile passing between them like a secret between two women at court.

Ruka clapped her firmly on the shoulder. "So I see you managed some in-depth biblical study as I lay dying. Very touching."

"Oh, don't be so sensitive, you were coming around." She grinned brightly, pleased that Ruka was back to goading her on about Rei. "You weren't very good conversational company."

"Oh yes, I imagine you and Sister Rei were doing plenty of conversational intercourse."

Their patter was interrupted by a knock at the door. It was late and it was cold, and these facts immediately filled Mina with mistrust. She rushed to grab her sword and pushed the servant away from the door.

"Who goes!?" Her voice boomed in a volume unlike her size and bearing in every way.

"A messenger of the King!"

Mina pointed her sword at the still-closed door. "The King is in the Holy Land, and I will not take this Prince as King, even if he should die! Long live King Richard!"

Ruka tried to struggle to her feet, despite her weakness, and Mina snapped at her to stay still and seated.

"Long live King Richard!" Came the answer from the door, and Mina was briefly put off. "I have a message for the Lady Michiru of Fizwalter, and for Ruka Hood, if she should live."

"Ruka Hood does not dwell here, and you can tell the King that."

There was a pause at the door, and then an answer, no longer in the praticed language of the court, but in the rough talk of the commoners. "Oh come now, Little Mina, we both know Ruka Hood either lives here or is buried here, and it's damn freezing. Open the door."

Mina slid her head out the door. "Who in the—Thomas?"

"Fancy seeing you again, Mina, after that night we-"

"Hush! What are you doing here?" She hissed.

"I've a message from the King. Like I said." He shrugged.

"The actual King?"

"King Richard, new returned from the Holy Land."

Mina flung wide the door and hauled him inside, taking the scroll from his hand and opening it.

He protested weakly. "That is for the Lady Michi-"

"Shut up, Thomas."

Ruka yelled over to the door. "You can't read, Mina."

"DON'T BOTHER ME WITH TRIFLES, YOU USELESS CRIPPLE." But she flung the scroll into Michiru's hands. "What does it say?"

Michiru considered it carefully. "When the winter breaks, King Richard would like to see Ruka Hood and her Merry Maids at court. I am also included in this, as he asks my intentions to marry."

Mina looked at her for a moment. "Has it ever occurred to you to marry so that people would stop asking you to?"

"Have you considered being quiet for the same reason?"

Mina offered some tart reply, but Michiru did not hear it. She would have to have proper gentlemen's clothes made for Ruka, and pray that her strength continued to improve. She would have to outfit herself in a fine gown. She would have to teach Mina to behave, if only for an afternoon.

She would have to find the words to announce to the court that she intended to marry a landless, illiterate orphan.

The King paced about his advisor. "And still so many halls sit vacant, so many lands appropriated to too few men." The king sighed. "This will not do, we must find some manner of solution."

There was an announcement from the front of the palace hall. "The Lady Michiru, of Fitzwalter Hall, and Ruka Hood, of Sherwood Forest, accompanied by the Merry Maids, of Sherwood Forest."

Michiru strolled in confidently, her arm in Haruka's, dressed in matching fine wool clothes, burgundy trimmed with a cream fur, a violet tucked in Michiru's hair and embroidered at Ruka's neck. Haruka leaned on her cane still, but her walk was more practiced, more confident, her cane polished and fine with delicately carved detail. They looked, Michiru thought proudly, as thought they belonged before the king. Michiru curtseyed low, as Haruka bowed, hoping it would suffice.

The King observed them for a moment, and then spoke. "Ruka Hood, I have heard much of your adventures. It seems you thought your rule to be more important than the rule of the crown." Ruka struggled to answer, but the king did not let her flounder long. "Luckily, you were quite correct in your thinking. You have cared for this kingdom, and I thank you for that." He turned his face. "Maid Michiru. You know I love you, sweet doll, but you must make a choice to marry or consent to live in my court and be a constant distraction and promise to guests." He smiled as if he already knew the answer.

Michiru stepped forward. "I have found someone, your Majesty. Someone kind and good, filled with true nobility and courage. Someone I could build my whole life around, in wealth or poverty, in sickness or in health. I understand now, how people can pledge the whole of their lives to another. I never could before." She took a deep breath, and looked about the court. "Ruka Hood, upon whom you have lavished such praise, is that woman."

The King looked confused for a moment, but only a moment. "Maid Michiru, do you mean to tell me this young...rouge is your choice?"

Michiru nodded, assured. "I have lived so many years, and seen so many faces, but no other has touched my heart like this young archer. No other in all this wide world."

King Richard nodded in return. "Well, can't have you marrying a commoner." He picked up an ornamental longsword, and one of the deeds off the table. "Kneel, Ruka Hood, of Sherwood Forest."

Ruka stepped forward and slowly lowered herself to the ground, wavering only slightly and laying her cane on the ground next to her.

The King looked out on the gathered people. "This world is full of those who would conquer the weak and the most in need of help. And there are those who would oppose them. For your service, not to the crown, but to the good of England and the will of God himself, rise, Dame, uh, yes I suppose, Dame Haruka, called Ruka Hood, now, the Lady of Loxley Hall." He tapped each shoulder, and handed her the deed to Loxley.

She was overcome, and clutched the deed to her chest. "Thank you, Sire." The King turned to sit, and Michiru helped Ruka to her feet.

Mina sighed heavily. "Fantastic. Ruka becomes a lady, I'm all dressed up with nowhere to go. Oh well, may as well steal some of the silver." She began to slip the forks and spoons into her top, and was trying to think of how to get the goblet out when she was interrupted.

"Miss little Mina, of Sherwood Forest?" The king's voice boomed across the palace hall.

"Yesssssss?" She set down the goblet delicately.

"Ruka tells me you have the gift of strategy."

"Oh, I've only come up with every half-decent plan the Merry Maids have had since we were kids." She leaned against the table cavalierly, and a spoon fell out of the bottom of her skirt.

The king raised his eyebrow. "Yes, so she tells me. I Find myself in need of a sheriff to protect the castle and township." He sad down on the throne. "And I'm almost certain I would rather have you on my side than opposed."

Mina considered her options for a minute, and then began to nod, but stopped. "This is a solo operation, right? I get top billing? More importantly, Ruka has nothing to do with this?"

The king seemed confused for a moment. "Do you require an assistant? This is generally done alone."

"Sounds splendid." She pulled the fancy sword from the scabbard on her back. "I come equipped."

"Such a fine sword, Little Mina, where did an orphan come upon it?"

"I, uh, it was given to me! By...a maiden! A magic maiden. In a lake. Who had a spare sword. For justice."

Ruka interrupted. "Your majesty, she will require a horse, you know. A white one, I think."

The king laughed and looked over at both girls. "Yes, that seems about right."

Michiru took Setsuna's hand. "You know I love you, dear Setsuna. But I must to Loxley with Ruka. We are to be married."

Setsuna nodded her head, trying to hide her tears. This was the fate of a young girl's handmaiden. They would always leave, off to the end of their story, whether triumphant or tragic, but things never changed for her. It was only a matter of time until she was no longer needed, no matter how she loved these girls.

But Michiru never let go of her hand. "I do have a thought, if you are willing." She turned back to King Richard. "And if his Majesty will permit me a moment of suggestion." She walked toward the king,her voice clear and sure and practiced. "The home where I was briefly kept, and where Dame Ruka Hood, Lady of Loxley, and your good Sheriff, Little Mina, were raised, is ill-managed. A young girl requires more than instruction and godliness, your Majesty, she requires love." She looked back at Setsuna, warm affection in her voice. "And I know none better to provide all of these things than Setsuna, as she has provided them to me. She has a heart so wide as all the world."

Setsuna beamed at the compliment, but Michiru was not finished.

"And with my intended marriage to Dame Ruka Hood, Fitzwalter will be quite unoccupied. I believe the girls of such a fair and righteous kingdom as this one, already weakened by the loss of family, would be strengthened by the grace of their king in providing them with a warm and loving home. A king must be father, to girls so fatherless. I know his Majesty has sought ways to do such."

Ruka put her arm around Michiru. She could make anything sound like the only answer to a problem, like something a wizard might weave, but more real. Ruka looked at her as if she were the voice of the angel Gabriel himself, announcing the salvation of the orphan girls of the kingdom.

The King stroked his small beard. "And you would give your ancestral hall for this cause?"

"If the King would so kind as to accept my paltry gift to this kingdom."

King Richard turned to Setsuna. "I am accustomed to having a man run this sort of school for girls."

Mina's voice popped up from where she stood, shining her new sword and watching the display. "Well, you were accustomed to a man running the security of the palace, and look how that turned out."

They all stared at her.

She remembered herself. "Your majesty."

King Richard laughed a roaring laugh. "I suppose you have some reason there." He nodded to Setsuna. "Setsuna, I declare you the keeper of Mother Mary's Home for Girls, to be relocated at Fitzwalter Hall, with, of course, a stipend to run as you see fit."

Setsuna took both of Michiru's hands in hers. "There will be happiness for us all, then."

Michiru drew her forehead close to Setsuna's. "You shall be mother to an entire kingdom, my dear Setsuna."

It's an old story. One you already know.

And though this story will change by the next time you hear it, one thing that may never change: They lived happily ever after.

"And that's the whole story, Papa?"

"That's what happily ever after means, honeybee."

Michiru opened the door. "Haruka, are you quite finished with that story? She should be sleeping already, you know."

The little girl, brown eyes sparkling, chestnut hair tied into a loose French braid before bed, pouted over at Michiru. "Mama, I LIKE this story. I want more."

Michiru smiled. "Well then, my dear, you will have to write it yourself. Haruka, let her sleep."

The little girl looked back over at Haruka, who gave a sideways grin and kissed her on the forehead. "Your Mama's right." She gave a sly whisper. "But don't tell her I said so."

Michiru looked happily on as her daughter snuggled into bed and closed her eyes. Haruka put her hand on the back of the chair, and pushed herself to her feet, leaning on her cane.

Michiru took her hand as she made her way slowly to the door. "I trust Ruka Hood saved the day again?"

"No, not at all." She leaned against the doorframe cheekily, propped on her good leg. "Maid Michiru saved Ruka Hood."

And they lived happily ever after.


End file.
